Poloran up and with her was her brother, and Mrs. Roseveldt left her seat on the stand, as soon as the mile run was decided, and joined us as we stood around Jim. She was a woman of kindly impulses in spite of her fondness for fashionable life.“You must let me have the boy conveyed to my house,” she said to Colonel Grey. “His father and mother are abroad, and you have no conveniences at the ‘Barracks’ for sickness.”“Oh, thank you, Mrs. Roseveldt,” Adelaide murmured, “and will you let me come too and nurse him?”“You had better not sacrifice your studies,” Mrs. Roseveldt replied kindly. “We will have a trained nurse and you shall come and sit with him for a time every afternoon. The hospitalities of my house are just now taxed by company. I shall have to give Jim Milly’s old room and put a cot in my dressing-room for the nurse.”“But my studies are of no consequence whatever in comparison with Jim,” Adelaide pleaded; “and the cot in the dressing-room will do finely for me. Please let me be the nurse, Mrs. Roseveldt.”Mrs. Roseveldt, seeing how much in earnest Adelaide was, turned to the physician and asked, “Doctor, do you think that an untrained girl like Miss Adelaide, with all the good intentions in the world, is capable of nursing your patient?”“Perfectly,” the physician replied. “I am assured now that the boy will recover. The artery cut was an unimportant one, but the gash just missed the tibialis; he has had a very fortunate escape. All he needs now is rest, and careful attendance, to recuperate. I haveno doubt that his sister’s society would enliven and benefit him far more than that of a stranger.”“How shall I get him to my home?” Mrs. Roseveldt asked. “He is hardly able to ride on the coach.”“Some one must go to the station and telegraph for an ambulance,” said the physician.“I will undertake that service. I have a good horse here,” volunteered Professor Waite, who had hurried to the pavilion as soon as he saw that Adelaide was in trouble. No one had noticed him up to this time, but Adelaide now accepted his offer very gratefully.“Anything that I can do for you, Miss Armstrong——” Professor Waite replied; but Adelaide was not listening to him, and he left his remark unfinished.“If we can do nothing further here,” said Mrs. Roseveldt, “I will ask Mr. Van Silver to take us home at once. I would like to order some preparations for the reception of my little guest.”“If you please, Mrs. Roseveldt,” said Adelaide. “I would rather wait for the ambulance and ride down with Jim.”“I will take charge of Miss Armstrong andher brother until the arrival of the ambulance,” said Colonel Grey. And so Adelaide was left.Mrs. Roseveldt collected her party and Mr. Van Silver gathered up the reins; but before we started Milly noticed that Miss Noakes was fanning Rosario Ricos, who had only partially recovered from her fainting fit, and that the poor woman looked dejected and puzzled. “Oh, Mr. Van Silver,” said Milly, “won’t you invite Rosario to take Adelaide’s place? She doesn’t look able to go back in the cars.”“Anything you please, Miss Milly,” Mr. Van Silver replied; and Milly was down from her seat in a moment, Miss Noakes accepting the offer most joyfully.Stacey came up just as we were leaving. He made no attempt to speak to Milly, but asked Mrs. Roseveldt if he might call on Jim occasionally.“My house is always open to you, Stacey,” Mrs. Roseveldt replied kindly, and Stacey thanked her and assisted Rosario to climb up beside her.“Aren’t you going to compete for the high jump?” asked Mr. Van Silver. Stacey shook his head.“That accident took all the starch out of you, didn’t it?” Mr. Van Silver continued. “Well, I don’t wonder; a nervous shock like that makes a fellow as weak as a rag. Never mind, Stacey, we’ll hear from you next year at Harvard. I shouldn’t wonder if you got on the ’Varsity crew.”On our way home, Mrs. Roseveldt condoled with Rosario. “I am sorry for your brother’s disappointment,” she said; “though we were all interested in Adelaide’s brother. It is the great pity in these contests that every one cannot win.”“It was not him to lose the race what troubled me,” said Rosario. “It was that he to hurt little Jim Armstrong, and some so bad boys near by to me did say he to do it upon purpose. They called him one ‘chump’ and ‘mucker.’ I know not what these words to mean, but I think that they are not of compliment.”We assured her that we did not believe it possible that her brother had intentionally hurt Jim, and she was somewhat comforted.“Fabrique is one little wild,” she said, “and his temper is not of the angels, but he could not be so bad.”“Who was that old gentleman who came and spoke to you during the games?” Mr. Van Silver asked of me.“He is Madame’s lawyer,” I replied. “We see him sometimes at the school.”“Didn’t I hear him mention the Earl of Cairngorm?”“Did he? Oh, yes! I remember, he said that the Earl of Cairngorm brought Polo’s brother to this country on his yacht.”“He must mean Terwilliger, the ex-jockey and cabin-boy, now trainer at the Cadet School.”“Exactly. Do you know him?”“Rather. I got him his present position. If it had not been for me I don’t think Colonel Grey would have engaged him.”“I’m so glad,” I cried, “if you can vouch for his character. You see——” and then I hesitated, bound by Madame’s orders not to mention our trouble.“What interests you particularly in Terwilliger?” asked Mr. Van Silver.“He is Polo’s brother, for one thing.”“And Polo is the young lady that Miss Milly was lunching so sumptuously on turtle-soup and ice-cream the afternoon I saw you at Sherry’s? I wanted to inquire whether thatlarge family of starving children were still subsisting on macaroons.”“Mr. Van Silver, you are just as mean as you can be,” Milly pouted.“Oh, no! you have yet to learn my capabilities in that direction. I am glad to know that yourprotégéis a sister of my favorite, for I like Terwilliger, and I think he has had a harder time than he deserves. There is one portion of his history that I could have testified to if I had been in the city and possibly have saved his being sent unjustly to prison, so I feel that I owe it to him to do him any kindness that I can.”“What was it, Mr. Van Silver?” I asked eagerly.“Oh! it’s my secret; and as it is too late to help Terwilliger now, I shan’t confess.”“Perhaps it is not too late to help him,” I exclaimed. “Mr. Van Silver, I can’t tell you now, but Mr. Mudge will explain everything, and when I send him to you will you please tell him all you can in Terwilliger’s favor. Indeed, he never needed your friendship more.”“I’m there,” Mr. Van Silver replied; “and in return what will you do for me?”“Winnie is writing a composition on thelife of Raphael. I will copy it and send it to you,” said Milly.Mr. Van Silver made a wry face; he had not a very favorable opinion of school-girl compositions. “I would rather see the young lady herself,” he replied; “but I don’t believe there is any Witch Winnie. She is a Will-o’-the-Wisp, Margery Daw sort of girl.”“She is thoroughly real, I do assure you.”“What does she look like? How does she dress?”“Well, out of doors she likes to wear a boy’s jockey cap of white cloth and a jaunty little jacket, and I regret to say that she is not unfrequently seen with her hands in its pockets, and her elbows making aggressive angles.”“And, I presume, she also wears stiffly-laundried shirt waists, with men’s ties, and divided skirts, and her hair is short and parted on the side, and she rides a bicycle. I know the type—the young lady who affects the masculine in her attire.”“She has just the loveliest long hair in the world, and her skirts are not divided, and she doesn’t ride a bicycle, nor wear shirt waists, at least not horrid, starched, manny ones. She likes the soft, washable silk kind;and she is a great deal more lady-like than you are, and lovely, and just splendid; so there!”Mr. Van Silver chuckled; he liked to tease Milly.Adelaide remained at Mrs. Roseveldt’s for two weeks. Jim did not gain as fast as the physician had expected. The nervous shock and the great strain of the race after the accident had been more than the boy’s slight physique could well endure.Adelaide read to him, and played endless games of halma and backgammon, and discussed plans for the summer, or told him of the people in her tenement, in whom Jim was even more interested, if that were possible, than Adelaide herself. Polo called and brought a bouquet, for which she had paid seven cents on Fourteenth Street. Jim was glad to meet Polo when he knew that she was Terwilliger’s sister, for the trainer had been especially proud of Jim, and had given him many points on bicycling.One day when Polo was present, Jim suddenly asked Adelaide, “Say, sister, did the boys really go to your cat-combing party?”“I don’t know,” Adelaide replied. “There were two suspicious characters there, but we never found out who they were.”“They was boys,” Polo insisted; “and one of ’em was fat, and trod on my toe, and one of ’em was little, and smelled of cigarettes.”“If I was only back at school,” Jim replied, a little fretfully, “I’d find out for you, fast enough, whether it was Buttertub and Ricos. But what can a fellow do penned up here?”“Never mind, Jim,” Adelaide replied soothingly. “The truth will all come out at last.”Polo’s great eyes snapped. “Albert Edward could find out,” she said. “The boys tell him lots of things.”Adelaide did not tell Polo that her brother’s testimony would count for little, as he was himself suspected, and the girl went away determined to assist in unravelling the mystery.Stacey called frequently and Adelaide could but admire his patience with the whims of the sick boy. Jim asked him to try to find out whether Buttertub and Ricos were the intruders on our Catacomb party, and this was one of the very few requests which Jim made that Stacey refused.“I don’t want to have anything to do with those fellows,” he said, “and you know I never could act the spy.”“I have been thinking,” Stacey said, after Adelaide had told him Polo’s history and theneeds of the Home, “that we boys might get up some sort of an athletic entertainment in behalf of the Home of the Elder Brother. The cadets all like Terwilliger, and if they knew that his little brother and sister were supported by the Home, they would all chip in willingly.”“Terwilliger has such a good salary,” Adelaide replied, “that Polo tells me they intend, as soon as their mother is able to leave the hospital, to take the children from the Home, rent an apartment in my tenement, and set up housekeeping for themselves. But, if the Terwilligers do not need it, you may be sure there will always be poor children enough who do. And something might happen, Terwilliger might lose his place at your gymnasium, and not be able to support his brother and sister, after all.”Adelaide was thinking uneasily as she spoke of the cloud which shadowed Polo and her brother. What if it should be proved that the ex-convict had committed the two robberies in the Amen Corner with the assistance of his sister.“Oh, Terwilliger won’t lose his situation,” Stacey remarked confidently. “Colonel Grey likes him, and so do all the fellows. He’s upon every kind of athletics; knows all the English ways of doing things, for he has been a jockey at the Ascot races and a coach to the Cambridge crew. He’s so good-natured too; doesn’t mind helping fellows outside of hours. He goes out rowing with me every Wednesday night in a two-oared gig on the Harlem.”“Were you rowing with him on the 10th?” Adelaide inquired eagerly, for this was the night of the Catacomb party.“Yes,” Stacey laughed, “and we were late, and I got a special blowing up for it, too. You see, they lock the door at ten, and I had to ring the janitor up, and he was raving, for he had already been disturbed to let Ricos and Buttertub in, and he was in no mood to pass it over. He reported us all to Colonel Grey, who gave us order marks for it.”“Ah!” thought Adelaide, “this is encouraging. Buttertub and Ricos were out late on the night of our party, and Stacey can prove an alibi for Terwilliger. I shall report all this to Mr. Mudge.”Jim returned persistently to the idea of the entertainment for the Home of the Elder Brother. “I wish you would see to it, Stacey. What are the boys doing now?”“Tennis, and base-ball. You ought to seeWoodpecker; he is going to be our tennis champion; he can make the neatest underhand cut. He’s simply great.”“Any better than the club down at the Pier?” Jim asked.“What! the Sand-flies? They can’t hold a candle to us.”“It would be nice to have the Cadets play the Sand-flies,” Jim suggested. “Colonel Grey would give the tennis club a field-day if you asked him, and the excursion to the Pier by boat would be lovely. Mrs. Roseveldt says she’s going to open her cottage earlier than usual this year, and she will get the Sand-flies interested. Say, is it a go?”Stacey lashed his boots lightly with his riding-whip; for he was on his way to the Park for a ride.“We couldn’t make a success of the affair without Miss Milly’s help,” he said, “and after the way she treated me at the games I’ll never ask another favor of her—never.”Jim was much distressed.“That tournament scheme was such a good one,” he said. “The Sand-flies are already interested in the Home of the Elder Brother, and we could make a big affair of it and rake in lots of money for the Home. I meanto talk with Mrs. Roseveldt about it, any way.”“All right,” Stacey replied as he rose to take his leave; “so long as you don’t talk with Miss Milly. She would think it a put-up job between us.”“Now it was real vexatious in Stacey to say that,” Jim remarked, after his friend had left. “I meant to have it out with Miss Milly the next time I saw her. Won’t you wrestle with her, Adelaide?”“I’m afraid it’s of no use,” Adelaide replied, but Jim would not give up the idea so easily. He talked it over with Mrs. Roseveldt, who approved of the tennis tournament. It would be just the thing with which to open the season. The Cadet team would be a great attraction. She would intercede with Colonel Grey to allow them to remain several days. “It must take place early in June,” she said, “just after Milly’s commencement exercises, and while Adelaide and you are visiting us, before your father and mother return and take you away. I will drop a line to Milly that I want her to come home for my last reception this season, and I’ll invite Stacey to talk it over.”Jim was afraid that Milly might not be inclinedto receive Stacey’s proposal with favor, and he accordingly wrote her a long and labored epistle, urging her, for the sake of the Home of the Elder Brother, to bury the war hatchet. Jim’s intentions were better than his spelling, which was even worse than Milly’s, and his letter amused her very much. One phrase struck her as especially diverting: “Stacey says you treated him worse than a Niger.”Jim had spelled the word with an economy of g’s, and a capital letter, which suggested visions of Darkest Africa. Milly laughed till she cried.“Perhaps I have been impolite to him,” she thought. Milly had a horror of being discourteous, and she wrote Jim that if Stacey would not be “soft,” she would be nice to him for the sake of the Home of the Elder Brother. Jim considered this quite a triumph, and showed the letter to Stacey on the occasion of his next visit.Stacey did not look as pleased as Jim had expected.“Catch me being soft with her,” he muttered. “I’ll show Miss Milly how much I care for her airs. By the way, Jim, we are to have two invitations each to give away for the prizeessays and declamations at the close of school. I intend to invite Miss Winnie De Witt and Miss Vaughn. I thought I would mention it, as it might influence your invitations.”Jim opened his eyes aghast at what he heard. “You don’t mean to say that you are not going to send Miss Milly one of your tickets?”“Yes, I do.”“And you are going to invite that hateful, horrid Vaughn girl?”“I heard Buttertub boast that he was going to invite her, and I thought it would be rather a pleasant thing for him to receive his ticket back again with the information that as she had already accepted mine she had no need for it.”Jim could hardly believe his ears. “Well, of all things,” he said. “You shan’t do it, Stacey; you shan’t do it! I’ll invite Miss Milly, with sister, if you don’t want to, but it’s a downright insult to fill her place with such a pimply faced, common, loud——”“I do not see that it is the young lady’s fault if she has ahumorous disposition, and as for her being loud——”“You said yourself that you could hear her hat at the Battery if she was walking in CentralPark. Sister says she toadies fearfully, and she flirted like a silly at the games, and at the drill. I think you must be hard up to ask her.”Stacey coloured, but was too proud to back down, and he left Jim in tears. Poor little fellow, as he expressed it, it seemed as if all the sticks which he tried to stand up straight were determined to fall down. He could see that something was wrong with his hero, for Stacey’s disappointment at the games had cut deeply, and the boy was on the verge of falling into a dangerous state of “don’t care.” When Jim asked him what subject he intended to choose for his essay, Stacey said that he had about decided not to compete. The subject must be connected with Greek history or life, and he despised the whole business, and the honour wasn’t worth the trouble.Adelaide took Stacey in hand and suggested a subject, in which he manifested some interest, but all this worried Jim and kept him from recovery.Adelaide watched him anxiously. She had at first thought it best not to notify her parents of Jim’s accident, fearing to spoil their tour; but as she felt certain that he was not improving she sent a cablegram, and receivedan answering one stating that they would sail for America at once. Adelaide watched eagerly for their coming. Jim pined for his mother, and one day, to give her little invalid something pleasant to look forward to, Adelaide told him that their parents were on the way home. The news did him more good than all the physician’s tonics. He brightened every day and talked of his mother incessantly. Once it seemed to occur to him that his delight was a poor return for Adelaide’s care, and he asked her anxiously, “You don’t mind, do you, sister, that I am so glad mother is coming? You are the very best sister in all the world, but then you are not quite mother. You never can know just what she was to me when we were so very poor.”“Of course, I am not jealous, dear Jim,” Adelaide replied. “I can well understand that you and mother are bound together even more closely than most mothers and sons, by that long fight together with poverty. I only wish that I had been with you to help you bear it. But then I do not know what father would have done. He suffered so much while you were lost to us, that if I had not been there to live for I think he would have died or have gone insane.”“I don’t wonder that father loves you so much and is so proud of you, sister. I am very glad you were not with us when we were so very wretched. You ought not to know what it is to be poor, Adelaide. You ought to be a queen.”“I am a queen now, Jim, and I think I do know what it is to be poor. When you told me all your bitter experiences, I felt them as keenly, it seemed to me, as if I had passed through them myself. I believe that God sent us this intimate knowledge of how the poor suffer in order that we might sympathize with and help them.” Then Adelaide told him of the tenement and described each of the families. Some of them Jim had known in that other life which has been related in a former volume, and he inquired eagerly for the inventor, Stephen Trimble, and for the Rumples, and others. Adelaide told him, too, of the two turtle-doves, and of the sad death of Miss Cohens, and how the Terwilligers were soon to be established in one of the best suites. This last information pleased Jim very much.“I like Terwilliger,” he said. “He is so funny; he drops all his h’s, and calls everything ‘bloomin’.’ Buttertub is a ‘bloomin’fool,’ and Stacey is a ‘bloomin’ swell,’ and when I got hurt he said it was a ‘bloomin’ shame,’ and Ricos was a ‘bloomin’ cad,’ and the fellows ought to have made a ‘bloomin’ row’ about it.”That evening it happened that Mrs. Roseveldt was to give amusicale, and as Jim was feeling very bright, Adelaide had consented to take part. She was a creditable performer upon the violin, and had decided upon a romance by Rubenstein. She came to the school early in the afternoon for her music, and, to give her more of a visit with us, Mrs. Roseveldt had suggested that she should remain until after dinner, promising to send the carriage for her. Stacey was expected to call that afternoon and would keep Jim from being lonely.We were all delighted to have Adelaide with us once more, for we had missed her greatly.I was painting in the studio, and Professor Waite had just told me that it was all for the best that I could not probably go to Europe in vacation.“You are not ready for it,” he said. “You will profit far more by European instruction after a year of thorough training in the ArtStudents’ League. I would advise you to attend it next winter. Our disappointments are often blessings in disguise. Providence keeps the things for which we are not prepared, saved on an upper shelf for us until we deserve them.”As he said this, a joyful hub-bub rang out in the Amen Corner, led by a wild, Comanche shriek from Polo, who happened to be in the corridor: “Miss Adelaide’s come! Glory! Oh, glory!”Professor Waite flushed and paled, took two steps impulsively toward the door, and then sat down before my easel, and began insanely to spoil a sky with idiotic dabs of green paint. I wondered whether Providence was saving up Adelaide until he deserved her. If so, the shelf was for the present a very high one.To my surprise, Adelaide tapped at the studio door a moment later. She greeted Professor Waite cordially. “I am so glad to find you,” she said, “for I want to impose upon you for a little help.”Professor Waite beamed.“Stacey Fitz Simmons has asked me for a subject for an essay and I have suggested ‘The Athletic Contests of Ancient Greece,’as giving a subject in which he is greatly interested—athletic sports—a classical turn, suitable for the dignified occasion. At first he thought he could make nothing original of it, but would have to crib everything from books of reference; but it occurred to me that he might treat it from a rather new standpoint by taking his information from remains of ancient sculpture. I told him he had better study the casts at the Metropolitan Museum, as that would be the next best thing to attending the games at Corinth. Can you give him any additional sources of information?”Professor Waite threw himself into the idea with enthusiasm and poured forth at once a dissertation which would have taken the highest honours at the competition. Then he made a memorandum of several works on art, which Stacey would do well to consult, and rummaged about in his portfolios for photographs of ancient statues of athletes and heroes, the procession from the frieze of the Parthenon, and the like.When we finally got Adelaide into the Amen Corner, we scarcely gave her an opportunity to dress for themusicale, we had so many little nothings to talk over with her.In the midst of it all Mr. Mudge called, and we opened fire upon him at once with the testimony which we had collected in favor of Polo and her brother. He was not greatly impressed with Stacey’s avowal that he had been out rowing with Terwilliger on the night of the Catacomb party.“I had already ascertained that he was out late that night,” he said. “Miss Milly told me that young Fitz Simmons on the night of the drill threatened to attend your party. What assurance have we that he did not attend it with Terwilliger as his companion? A lark on the young gentleman’s part, and a clever opportunity to steal on the part of the trainer. My assistant has discovered that Terwilliger has had no dealings with his old associate Nimble Tim since his release from prison. Having to discard the idea that Tim was his companion, I have been looking about to find another possible one. I thank you for your assistance.”Milly was very angry. With true womanly inconsistency she scouted the idea that Stacey could have had any part in the proceedings, although she was the very one who had at first suggested it.“And here,” she said, “is something whichought to be perfectly convincing to any sane man. Polo told me last night that her brother heard Ricos and Buttertub boasting that they had fooled us all so nicely, and had seen our play. They made fun of Winnie, and said she had a little squeaky voice for so manly a part, and that it was ‘nuts’ to see us try to manage our togas. Oh! I’d just like to choke them.”Mr. Mudge smiled. “It is very natural,” he said, “that Terwilliger should attempt to throw suspicion on some one else.”“But you know that Buttertub and Ricos were out late that night,” I suggested.“Ricos obtained permission from Colonel Grey to hear Professor Ware’s lecture on Architecture, at Columbia College.”“And did they say they attended it?” Adelaide asked.“Ricos so reported at the Barracks.”“Well, I happen to know that Professor Ware delivers those lectures on Tuesday evenings,” Adelaide replied triumphantly; “and this was Wednesday night.”“Are you sure of this?”“I am sure because I attend the lectures, and neither of those boys were there.”Mr. Mudge rubbed his brow with his pencil.“Terwilliger’s previous bad record counts against him,” he said persistently.“Mr. Mudge,” I entreated, “will you do me the favor to call on a friend of ours, Mr. Van Silver, who knows all about that previous record of Terwilliger’s.”“How is that?” Mr. Mudge asked, and I related my conversation with Mr. Van Silver on our return from the games.“I will interview this gentleman,” said Mr. Mudge, “for though appearances are strongly against Terwilliger, I do not wish to act on appearances alone. And meantime, if you could find some other witness than young Fitz Simmons who could prove that he and the trainer were really boating on the Harlem the night of your party, and some other witness than Terwilliger to the admission of Ricos and his friend of the dairy nickname, the cause of Lawn Tennis and her brother would be materially strengthened.”“I agree to produce such witnesses,” said Winnie rashly. “I have called it my mystery and I intend to fathom it, if it takes all summer.”Mr. Mudge bowed and withdrew. His boots creaked down the hall a little way and then we heard a knock and the opening of a door.“Girls, he’s calling on Miss Noakes,” Winnie cried, in high glee. “Now, what’s to hinder my running out on the balcony and showing her that two can play at the game of peek-a-boo.”“Nothing but the honour of the Amen Corner,” Adelaide remarked. The words threw a wet blanket on Winnie’s proposal, but there was a flickering smile about Adelaide’s lips which showed that she was bent upon mischief, a rare thing for Adelaide.“I will wait until Mr. Mudge is gone,” she said,—“I would not interrupt two young lovers for the world,—and then I think I’ll call on Miss Noakes. I want her to help me translate the visit of Æneas to Queen Dido.”“That’s just like Winnie,” Milly exclaimed; “but you would never do such a thing.”“Won’t I? You don’t half know me, Milly, dear,” and Adelaide actually fulfilled her threat.Miss Noakes and Adelaide“She expected him,” Adelaide exclaimed, when she returned. “I found her all gotten up regardless—that low-necked black net of hers! She did look too absurd for anything, but happy is no name for it. There was a blush on her withered old cheeks, and I actually believe a real tear in her eye. WhenI told her what I wanted her to translate, she glared at me haughtily, but I looked as demure as I could, and she went through it without flinching. ‘Men are deceivers ever, aren’t they, Miss Noakes?’ I said. ‘Just think of Pious Æneas behaving so cruelly to his dear Dido.’ ‘How should I know, child?’ she replied rather curtly.”While we were laughing, Cerberus knocked to inform us that Mrs. Roseveldt’s carriage waited and had sent him to inquire for Miss Armstrong.Adelaide found that Stacey had waited for her return. He woke to animation over the photographs. “This decides me,” he said. “I shall try for the prize. I didn’t imagine there was anything in Greek civilization that I cared a rap for; but that quoit player is fine. Just look at his muscles. I always thought that Discobolus was the fellow’s name. It never dawned upon me that it meant a quoit player. And this Mercury hardly needs wings on his heels, his legs are built for a runner. And isn’t that Fighting Gladiator superb? And that Hercules and Vulcan? Well, now, here is something curious. I do believe that Baker got his ‘set’ from that statue; the left arm is extended in the very same way,and the boys all thought it was original with him.”So he ran on, his eyes kindling once more with enthusiasm. “Well, I must go now and ‘bone’ on my geometry—beastly bore; but Buttertub has been having very good marks lately, and I am not going to let him rank me.”He had hardly gone before it was time for Adelaide’s Romance, and after that Mr. Van Silver came up to express his compliments.“I was sorry Stacey could not stay to hear you play,” he said, “but he seems to have a virtuous fit on, and said he must hurry to the barracks and spend the evening in study. Perhaps, however, it was only an excuse for mischief.”“Do you think so?” Adelaide asked. “It has seemed to me of late that Stacey has had little heart for anything, even for mischief.”“That’s a fact. I haven’t seen him on the river since the games, and he used to be very fond of rowing.”Adelaide gave a little gesture of despair. “There,” she said, “I forgot to ask him whether any one knew of his going out boating, the night of our party, with Terwilliger,and Winnie was so particular about it. How provoked she will be with me.”“Why is it that you young ladies have developed an overweening interest in Terwilliger?” asked Mr. Van Silver. They were sitting on the staircase apart from the others, and Adelaide replied:“It is because he is suspected of a robbery which has occurred at our school. We have been cautioned not to mention it, but I think I may say as much to you, for Mr. Mudge, the detective who has been engaged to investigate the affair, told me this afternoon that he intended to interview you in regard to Terwilliger’s part in the crime for which he was sent to prison.”A cloud passed over Mr. Van Silver’s face. “I hoped that thing was dead and buried,” he said. “It only proves that nothing is really ever settled unless it is settled right. If it will do Terwilliger any good, I will testify openly, as I ought to have done in the first place.”Adelaide looked at Mr. Van Silver wonderingly. He understood and said quickly, “I cannot bear to lose your respect, Miss Armstrong; perhaps I had better tell you just how it all happened.”“Not to gratify any curiosity on my part,”Adelaide replied; “you might be sorry afterward. And if it is something that the world has no business to know——”“TheWorld!Heaven forbid that an account of the affair should get into theWorld, theHerald, or any of our newspapers. I would rather no one knew anything about it; but when I have told you the entire story you will be able to judge how much of it I ought to confide to your friend Mudge, in order to aid Terwilliger. You see, young Cairngorm is a regular cub. His father sent him across on his yacht to us. He wanted mother to comb him out, introduce him in New York circles, and get him married, if she could, to some American heiress. If you girls only knew what scamps some of those slips of nobility are you would not be so crazy for titles.”Adelaide’s eyes snapped. “I do not care a fig for a title,” she said indignantly. “I think a great deal more of an enterprising, hard-working, true-hearted American, than of a mere name. I think that the American pride of having accomplished some worthy work in life is much more allowable than the English pride of belonging to a leisure class.”“I beg pardon. I did not intend to be personal.When my mother saw what sort of a specimen had been confided to her hands, she made no efforts in the matrimonial direction, but simply tried to keep the chap out of harm’s way for a season, using me as her aide-de-camp. He had a passion for betting and gaming, and I was at my wits end sometimes to head him off. Terwilliger came over with him, you know; but he left the yacht on its arrival for he wanted to establish himself permanently in America. Cairngorm liked Terwilliger, tipped him handsomely on parting, and asked me to take an interest in him. I promised to look out for him and immediately forgot his existence. Terwilliger drifted about, waiting for something to turn up, and Satan, who is the only employer who is on the lookout for poor fellows who are out of work, appeared to Terwilliger, in the person of a new acquaintance, Limber Tim. Tim told him that he was connected with a sort of club devoted to athletics. It was really a gambling saloon. Tim knew of Terwilliger’s acquaintance with Cairngorm, and he promised Terwilliger a five dollar bill if he would persuade Cairngorm to patronize his establishment. ‘Tell him,’ he said, ‘that we are to have a very select game of poker to-night,only gentlemen present, and get him to come down.’“Now, how Terwilliger happened to be such a lamb, I can’t say; but he had never heard of poker, and he asked Tim if it was anything like single stick. This amused Tim and he did not undeceive Terwilliger, who appeared at our house in search of Cairngorm, and, not finding him, left a labored epistle inviting him to come to No. — Bowery, and see some fun in the way of a sleight of hand performance with a ‘poker.’ Cairngorm saw through it, though Terwilliger did not, and went out after dinner without explaining where he was going. He took the note with him for fear he might forget the number of the house, and thought that he replaced it in his pocket, after consulting it under a corner gaslight; but, as his luck would have it, he dropped the note there, and a policeman, who had seen him read it, picked it up. The policeman knew that the house was a gambling saloon, and immediately surmised the truth, that this finely dressed young swell had been decoyed to his ruin. Terwilliger had begun his letter simply, ‘Nobble Sur,’ and our address was not on the letter, so that there was no clue to Cairngorm’s identity; but he had signed his ownname in full, and the astute policeman had this bit of convincing evidence of Terwilliger’s complicity in the confidence game.“We knew nothing of this at the time, but it was late at night before Cairngorm returned to our house, and we had all been very anxious about him. His statements were to the point, for he had been thoroughly frightened. He had lost heavily, and in the midst of the game the police had raided the place, and he had escaped by springing into a dumb-waiter, which had landed him in a kitchen, where he had remained secreted until all was quiet.“‘It is very fortunate for you,’ my father said sternly, ‘that the police did not secure you, for in that case the reporters would have had a sensation for the morning papers, and your noble father would have learned of your lodgment in the Tombs. As it is, you had better leave New York at once. Your yacht is at Newport. I advise you to report at home as soon as possible. It is your own fault that your American visit has had so sudden and so disgraceful an ending.’“I saw Cairngorm off, much relieved to get him off my hands, for we had very little in common, and he was so lacking in principle that my feeling for him was only one of contemptuouspity. On our way to Newport Cairngorm told me that Terwilliger was perfectly innocent of any connivance with the gamblers, and that as soon as he saw that they were playing for money had attempted to induce him to leave the place, using every persuasion possible, and making the gamblers very angry with him. They had tried to put him out of the room, but he had insisted on remaining, and when the police appeared it was Terwilliger who had shown Cairngorm into the dumb-waiter. Immediately after Cairngorm’s departure to Scotland, I sailed for a long trip around the world, so that it was over a year before I returned to New York.“What was my chagrin to find that Terwilliger had been arrested and sent to prison with the gamblers. My father had succeeded in keeping Cairngorm’s name out of the papers, but as he believed that Terwilliger had knowingly acted as a decoy he had made no attempt to save him. Terwilliger would not disclose Cairngorm’s name at the trial when confronted with the letter which he acknowledged having written. Nor did he write him asking his assistance, so determined was he not to implicate his patron in the affair. I looked up Terwilliger, and finding that he hadonly a few weeks more to serve, set myself to work in earnest to secure him a good position. I told the entire story to Colonel Grey, who met him with me, on his release, and feeling confident that he had not been contaminated by his prison associations, gave him the position of trainer at his gymnasium. He has had a good record there ever since, and I have been very unhappy that he has suffered so much on my graceless friend’s account. If I had known that an innocent person was to be sent to prison I would never have helped him away after his scrape, but would have insisted on his disclosing the entire truth, and braving the consequences like a man. As it is I am going to make Cairngorm do something for Terwilliger this summer. One of my grooms does not care to go to Europe with me, and if Terwilliger has nothing better to do while the cadets are on vacation, I will take him across. I shall bring him back in the fall in time for the opening of the school.”Adelaide was intensely interested in this story. “You will tell it all to Mr. Mudge, will you not?” she asked, “and convince him that Terwilliger was unjustly imprisoned.”Mr. Van Silver promised to do this, and soon after took his leave.Adelaide had not intended to tell Jim anything of the suspicion which had fallen upon the trainer, but Jim had left his bedroom and come out upon the landing to listen to the music, and had overheard all of Mr. Van Silver’s account.When Adelaide went in to kiss Jim goodnight, she found his cheeks hot and his eyes quite wild. “You will go to Mr. Mudge right away, will you not, sister?” he urged. And he was not at all satisfied when Adelaide assured him that this was not necessary, as Mr. Mudge had promised to call on Mr. Van Silver on the following day.The next day Mr. and Mrs. Armstrong arrived, and Jim’s delight threw him into a fever of excitement. Such alternations of happiness and worry were bad for the boy, who needed calm, and Mr. Armstrong wished to remove him to Old Point Comfort, but Jim begged that he might not be taken from the city until the closing exercises of the Cadet School. “I shall be well enough to attend them, I know,” he pleaded, “and I want to see sister graduate, and to know how the mystery turns out, and whether Terwilliger is all right.”To gratify the boy Mr. Armstrong tookfurnished apartments fronting on Central Park, and Mrs. Armstrong devoted herself to the care of her little invalid, while Adelaide returned to school.Commencement was near at hand, and Adelaide felt that she must work hard to pass the final examination creditably. Our life at Madame’s was not all frolic, though I am conscious that my story would seem to indicate that such was the case. Naturally, a full report of the solid lessons which we learned would make a very stupid story, but the lessons formed our daily diet, and the scrapes and good times that I have chronicled occurred only at intervals.We had what Milly called a thousand miles of desert, without even the least little oasis of fun, between the Inter-scholastic Games and the examinations. Winnie had taken a fit of serious study, and when Winnie studied she did it, as she played, with all her might. Our only lark for quite a time was a house-warming which we gave the Terwilligers. Polo told us how she was fitting up the little flat of three rooms with the assistance of her brother, and it certainly seemed as if the cloud which had shadowed her had drifted away. The largest room was the kitchen, also used as a dining-room.Adelaide had provided a range, and many other things, with the rooms. The cadets clubbed together and made Terwilliger a handsome present in money, with which he purchased a lounge, which served for his own bed, and an easy chair for his mother; and our King’s Daughters Ten provided all the tinware and crockery. Madame sent down a nice bedstead and some bedding. Professor Waite contributed a neatly framed portrait of Polo, and Miss Noakes gave a box of soap. Polo purchased the table linen, towels, etc., with her own earnings, and Miss Billings hemmed them and the curtains, which were made of cheese cloth. Mrs. Roseveldt sent her carriage to take Mrs. Terwilliger from the hospital to her new home and gave a carpet, and Mr. Van Silver ordered a barrel of flour and a half ton of coal. Mrs. Armstrong selected a lamp as Jim’s present, and took the two children from the Home to one of the large stores and provided them well with clothing for the summer before delivering them to their mother. It was a very happy and united family that met together that evening in Adelaide’s tenement, and Mrs. Terwilliger, who had not been credited by her acquaintances as being a religious woman, exclaimedreverently, “It seems to me we’d orter be grateful to Providence for all these mercies;” and her son responded emphatically:“Grateful to Providence? You bet your life, I am!”
Poloran up and with her was her brother, and Mrs. Roseveldt left her seat on the stand, as soon as the mile run was decided, and joined us as we stood around Jim. She was a woman of kindly impulses in spite of her fondness for fashionable life.
“You must let me have the boy conveyed to my house,” she said to Colonel Grey. “His father and mother are abroad, and you have no conveniences at the ‘Barracks’ for sickness.”
“Oh, thank you, Mrs. Roseveldt,” Adelaide murmured, “and will you let me come too and nurse him?”
“You had better not sacrifice your studies,” Mrs. Roseveldt replied kindly. “We will have a trained nurse and you shall come and sit with him for a time every afternoon. The hospitalities of my house are just now taxed by company. I shall have to give Jim Milly’s old room and put a cot in my dressing-room for the nurse.”
“But my studies are of no consequence whatever in comparison with Jim,” Adelaide pleaded; “and the cot in the dressing-room will do finely for me. Please let me be the nurse, Mrs. Roseveldt.”
Mrs. Roseveldt, seeing how much in earnest Adelaide was, turned to the physician and asked, “Doctor, do you think that an untrained girl like Miss Adelaide, with all the good intentions in the world, is capable of nursing your patient?”
“Perfectly,” the physician replied. “I am assured now that the boy will recover. The artery cut was an unimportant one, but the gash just missed the tibialis; he has had a very fortunate escape. All he needs now is rest, and careful attendance, to recuperate. I haveno doubt that his sister’s society would enliven and benefit him far more than that of a stranger.”
“How shall I get him to my home?” Mrs. Roseveldt asked. “He is hardly able to ride on the coach.”
“Some one must go to the station and telegraph for an ambulance,” said the physician.
“I will undertake that service. I have a good horse here,” volunteered Professor Waite, who had hurried to the pavilion as soon as he saw that Adelaide was in trouble. No one had noticed him up to this time, but Adelaide now accepted his offer very gratefully.
“Anything that I can do for you, Miss Armstrong——” Professor Waite replied; but Adelaide was not listening to him, and he left his remark unfinished.
“If we can do nothing further here,” said Mrs. Roseveldt, “I will ask Mr. Van Silver to take us home at once. I would like to order some preparations for the reception of my little guest.”
“If you please, Mrs. Roseveldt,” said Adelaide. “I would rather wait for the ambulance and ride down with Jim.”
“I will take charge of Miss Armstrong andher brother until the arrival of the ambulance,” said Colonel Grey. And so Adelaide was left.
Mrs. Roseveldt collected her party and Mr. Van Silver gathered up the reins; but before we started Milly noticed that Miss Noakes was fanning Rosario Ricos, who had only partially recovered from her fainting fit, and that the poor woman looked dejected and puzzled. “Oh, Mr. Van Silver,” said Milly, “won’t you invite Rosario to take Adelaide’s place? She doesn’t look able to go back in the cars.”
“Anything you please, Miss Milly,” Mr. Van Silver replied; and Milly was down from her seat in a moment, Miss Noakes accepting the offer most joyfully.
Stacey came up just as we were leaving. He made no attempt to speak to Milly, but asked Mrs. Roseveldt if he might call on Jim occasionally.
“My house is always open to you, Stacey,” Mrs. Roseveldt replied kindly, and Stacey thanked her and assisted Rosario to climb up beside her.
“Aren’t you going to compete for the high jump?” asked Mr. Van Silver. Stacey shook his head.
“That accident took all the starch out of you, didn’t it?” Mr. Van Silver continued. “Well, I don’t wonder; a nervous shock like that makes a fellow as weak as a rag. Never mind, Stacey, we’ll hear from you next year at Harvard. I shouldn’t wonder if you got on the ’Varsity crew.”
On our way home, Mrs. Roseveldt condoled with Rosario. “I am sorry for your brother’s disappointment,” she said; “though we were all interested in Adelaide’s brother. It is the great pity in these contests that every one cannot win.”
“It was not him to lose the race what troubled me,” said Rosario. “It was that he to hurt little Jim Armstrong, and some so bad boys near by to me did say he to do it upon purpose. They called him one ‘chump’ and ‘mucker.’ I know not what these words to mean, but I think that they are not of compliment.”
We assured her that we did not believe it possible that her brother had intentionally hurt Jim, and she was somewhat comforted.
“Fabrique is one little wild,” she said, “and his temper is not of the angels, but he could not be so bad.”
“Who was that old gentleman who came and spoke to you during the games?” Mr. Van Silver asked of me.
“He is Madame’s lawyer,” I replied. “We see him sometimes at the school.”
“Didn’t I hear him mention the Earl of Cairngorm?”
“Did he? Oh, yes! I remember, he said that the Earl of Cairngorm brought Polo’s brother to this country on his yacht.”
“He must mean Terwilliger, the ex-jockey and cabin-boy, now trainer at the Cadet School.”
“Exactly. Do you know him?”
“Rather. I got him his present position. If it had not been for me I don’t think Colonel Grey would have engaged him.”
“I’m so glad,” I cried, “if you can vouch for his character. You see——” and then I hesitated, bound by Madame’s orders not to mention our trouble.
“What interests you particularly in Terwilliger?” asked Mr. Van Silver.
“He is Polo’s brother, for one thing.”
“And Polo is the young lady that Miss Milly was lunching so sumptuously on turtle-soup and ice-cream the afternoon I saw you at Sherry’s? I wanted to inquire whether thatlarge family of starving children were still subsisting on macaroons.”
“Mr. Van Silver, you are just as mean as you can be,” Milly pouted.
“Oh, no! you have yet to learn my capabilities in that direction. I am glad to know that yourprotégéis a sister of my favorite, for I like Terwilliger, and I think he has had a harder time than he deserves. There is one portion of his history that I could have testified to if I had been in the city and possibly have saved his being sent unjustly to prison, so I feel that I owe it to him to do him any kindness that I can.”
“What was it, Mr. Van Silver?” I asked eagerly.
“Oh! it’s my secret; and as it is too late to help Terwilliger now, I shan’t confess.”
“Perhaps it is not too late to help him,” I exclaimed. “Mr. Van Silver, I can’t tell you now, but Mr. Mudge will explain everything, and when I send him to you will you please tell him all you can in Terwilliger’s favor. Indeed, he never needed your friendship more.”
“I’m there,” Mr. Van Silver replied; “and in return what will you do for me?”
“Winnie is writing a composition on thelife of Raphael. I will copy it and send it to you,” said Milly.
Mr. Van Silver made a wry face; he had not a very favorable opinion of school-girl compositions. “I would rather see the young lady herself,” he replied; “but I don’t believe there is any Witch Winnie. She is a Will-o’-the-Wisp, Margery Daw sort of girl.”
“She is thoroughly real, I do assure you.”
“What does she look like? How does she dress?”
“Well, out of doors she likes to wear a boy’s jockey cap of white cloth and a jaunty little jacket, and I regret to say that she is not unfrequently seen with her hands in its pockets, and her elbows making aggressive angles.”
“And, I presume, she also wears stiffly-laundried shirt waists, with men’s ties, and divided skirts, and her hair is short and parted on the side, and she rides a bicycle. I know the type—the young lady who affects the masculine in her attire.”
“She has just the loveliest long hair in the world, and her skirts are not divided, and she doesn’t ride a bicycle, nor wear shirt waists, at least not horrid, starched, manny ones. She likes the soft, washable silk kind;and she is a great deal more lady-like than you are, and lovely, and just splendid; so there!”
Mr. Van Silver chuckled; he liked to tease Milly.
Adelaide remained at Mrs. Roseveldt’s for two weeks. Jim did not gain as fast as the physician had expected. The nervous shock and the great strain of the race after the accident had been more than the boy’s slight physique could well endure.
Adelaide read to him, and played endless games of halma and backgammon, and discussed plans for the summer, or told him of the people in her tenement, in whom Jim was even more interested, if that were possible, than Adelaide herself. Polo called and brought a bouquet, for which she had paid seven cents on Fourteenth Street. Jim was glad to meet Polo when he knew that she was Terwilliger’s sister, for the trainer had been especially proud of Jim, and had given him many points on bicycling.
One day when Polo was present, Jim suddenly asked Adelaide, “Say, sister, did the boys really go to your cat-combing party?”
“I don’t know,” Adelaide replied. “There were two suspicious characters there, but we never found out who they were.”
“They was boys,” Polo insisted; “and one of ’em was fat, and trod on my toe, and one of ’em was little, and smelled of cigarettes.”
“If I was only back at school,” Jim replied, a little fretfully, “I’d find out for you, fast enough, whether it was Buttertub and Ricos. But what can a fellow do penned up here?”
“Never mind, Jim,” Adelaide replied soothingly. “The truth will all come out at last.”
Polo’s great eyes snapped. “Albert Edward could find out,” she said. “The boys tell him lots of things.”
Adelaide did not tell Polo that her brother’s testimony would count for little, as he was himself suspected, and the girl went away determined to assist in unravelling the mystery.
Stacey called frequently and Adelaide could but admire his patience with the whims of the sick boy. Jim asked him to try to find out whether Buttertub and Ricos were the intruders on our Catacomb party, and this was one of the very few requests which Jim made that Stacey refused.
“I don’t want to have anything to do with those fellows,” he said, “and you know I never could act the spy.”
“I have been thinking,” Stacey said, after Adelaide had told him Polo’s history and theneeds of the Home, “that we boys might get up some sort of an athletic entertainment in behalf of the Home of the Elder Brother. The cadets all like Terwilliger, and if they knew that his little brother and sister were supported by the Home, they would all chip in willingly.”
“Terwilliger has such a good salary,” Adelaide replied, “that Polo tells me they intend, as soon as their mother is able to leave the hospital, to take the children from the Home, rent an apartment in my tenement, and set up housekeeping for themselves. But, if the Terwilligers do not need it, you may be sure there will always be poor children enough who do. And something might happen, Terwilliger might lose his place at your gymnasium, and not be able to support his brother and sister, after all.”
Adelaide was thinking uneasily as she spoke of the cloud which shadowed Polo and her brother. What if it should be proved that the ex-convict had committed the two robberies in the Amen Corner with the assistance of his sister.
“Oh, Terwilliger won’t lose his situation,” Stacey remarked confidently. “Colonel Grey likes him, and so do all the fellows. He’s upon every kind of athletics; knows all the English ways of doing things, for he has been a jockey at the Ascot races and a coach to the Cambridge crew. He’s so good-natured too; doesn’t mind helping fellows outside of hours. He goes out rowing with me every Wednesday night in a two-oared gig on the Harlem.”
“Were you rowing with him on the 10th?” Adelaide inquired eagerly, for this was the night of the Catacomb party.
“Yes,” Stacey laughed, “and we were late, and I got a special blowing up for it, too. You see, they lock the door at ten, and I had to ring the janitor up, and he was raving, for he had already been disturbed to let Ricos and Buttertub in, and he was in no mood to pass it over. He reported us all to Colonel Grey, who gave us order marks for it.”
“Ah!” thought Adelaide, “this is encouraging. Buttertub and Ricos were out late on the night of our party, and Stacey can prove an alibi for Terwilliger. I shall report all this to Mr. Mudge.”
Jim returned persistently to the idea of the entertainment for the Home of the Elder Brother. “I wish you would see to it, Stacey. What are the boys doing now?”
“Tennis, and base-ball. You ought to seeWoodpecker; he is going to be our tennis champion; he can make the neatest underhand cut. He’s simply great.”
“Any better than the club down at the Pier?” Jim asked.
“What! the Sand-flies? They can’t hold a candle to us.”
“It would be nice to have the Cadets play the Sand-flies,” Jim suggested. “Colonel Grey would give the tennis club a field-day if you asked him, and the excursion to the Pier by boat would be lovely. Mrs. Roseveldt says she’s going to open her cottage earlier than usual this year, and she will get the Sand-flies interested. Say, is it a go?”
Stacey lashed his boots lightly with his riding-whip; for he was on his way to the Park for a ride.
“We couldn’t make a success of the affair without Miss Milly’s help,” he said, “and after the way she treated me at the games I’ll never ask another favor of her—never.”
Jim was much distressed.
“That tournament scheme was such a good one,” he said. “The Sand-flies are already interested in the Home of the Elder Brother, and we could make a big affair of it and rake in lots of money for the Home. I meanto talk with Mrs. Roseveldt about it, any way.”
“All right,” Stacey replied as he rose to take his leave; “so long as you don’t talk with Miss Milly. She would think it a put-up job between us.”
“Now it was real vexatious in Stacey to say that,” Jim remarked, after his friend had left. “I meant to have it out with Miss Milly the next time I saw her. Won’t you wrestle with her, Adelaide?”
“I’m afraid it’s of no use,” Adelaide replied, but Jim would not give up the idea so easily. He talked it over with Mrs. Roseveldt, who approved of the tennis tournament. It would be just the thing with which to open the season. The Cadet team would be a great attraction. She would intercede with Colonel Grey to allow them to remain several days. “It must take place early in June,” she said, “just after Milly’s commencement exercises, and while Adelaide and you are visiting us, before your father and mother return and take you away. I will drop a line to Milly that I want her to come home for my last reception this season, and I’ll invite Stacey to talk it over.”
Jim was afraid that Milly might not be inclinedto receive Stacey’s proposal with favor, and he accordingly wrote her a long and labored epistle, urging her, for the sake of the Home of the Elder Brother, to bury the war hatchet. Jim’s intentions were better than his spelling, which was even worse than Milly’s, and his letter amused her very much. One phrase struck her as especially diverting: “Stacey says you treated him worse than a Niger.”
Jim had spelled the word with an economy of g’s, and a capital letter, which suggested visions of Darkest Africa. Milly laughed till she cried.
“Perhaps I have been impolite to him,” she thought. Milly had a horror of being discourteous, and she wrote Jim that if Stacey would not be “soft,” she would be nice to him for the sake of the Home of the Elder Brother. Jim considered this quite a triumph, and showed the letter to Stacey on the occasion of his next visit.
Stacey did not look as pleased as Jim had expected.
“Catch me being soft with her,” he muttered. “I’ll show Miss Milly how much I care for her airs. By the way, Jim, we are to have two invitations each to give away for the prizeessays and declamations at the close of school. I intend to invite Miss Winnie De Witt and Miss Vaughn. I thought I would mention it, as it might influence your invitations.”
Jim opened his eyes aghast at what he heard. “You don’t mean to say that you are not going to send Miss Milly one of your tickets?”
“Yes, I do.”
“And you are going to invite that hateful, horrid Vaughn girl?”
“I heard Buttertub boast that he was going to invite her, and I thought it would be rather a pleasant thing for him to receive his ticket back again with the information that as she had already accepted mine she had no need for it.”
Jim could hardly believe his ears. “Well, of all things,” he said. “You shan’t do it, Stacey; you shan’t do it! I’ll invite Miss Milly, with sister, if you don’t want to, but it’s a downright insult to fill her place with such a pimply faced, common, loud——”
“I do not see that it is the young lady’s fault if she has ahumorous disposition, and as for her being loud——”
“You said yourself that you could hear her hat at the Battery if she was walking in CentralPark. Sister says she toadies fearfully, and she flirted like a silly at the games, and at the drill. I think you must be hard up to ask her.”
Stacey coloured, but was too proud to back down, and he left Jim in tears. Poor little fellow, as he expressed it, it seemed as if all the sticks which he tried to stand up straight were determined to fall down. He could see that something was wrong with his hero, for Stacey’s disappointment at the games had cut deeply, and the boy was on the verge of falling into a dangerous state of “don’t care.” When Jim asked him what subject he intended to choose for his essay, Stacey said that he had about decided not to compete. The subject must be connected with Greek history or life, and he despised the whole business, and the honour wasn’t worth the trouble.
Adelaide took Stacey in hand and suggested a subject, in which he manifested some interest, but all this worried Jim and kept him from recovery.
Adelaide watched him anxiously. She had at first thought it best not to notify her parents of Jim’s accident, fearing to spoil their tour; but as she felt certain that he was not improving she sent a cablegram, and receivedan answering one stating that they would sail for America at once. Adelaide watched eagerly for their coming. Jim pined for his mother, and one day, to give her little invalid something pleasant to look forward to, Adelaide told him that their parents were on the way home. The news did him more good than all the physician’s tonics. He brightened every day and talked of his mother incessantly. Once it seemed to occur to him that his delight was a poor return for Adelaide’s care, and he asked her anxiously, “You don’t mind, do you, sister, that I am so glad mother is coming? You are the very best sister in all the world, but then you are not quite mother. You never can know just what she was to me when we were so very poor.”
“Of course, I am not jealous, dear Jim,” Adelaide replied. “I can well understand that you and mother are bound together even more closely than most mothers and sons, by that long fight together with poverty. I only wish that I had been with you to help you bear it. But then I do not know what father would have done. He suffered so much while you were lost to us, that if I had not been there to live for I think he would have died or have gone insane.”
“I don’t wonder that father loves you so much and is so proud of you, sister. I am very glad you were not with us when we were so very wretched. You ought not to know what it is to be poor, Adelaide. You ought to be a queen.”
“I am a queen now, Jim, and I think I do know what it is to be poor. When you told me all your bitter experiences, I felt them as keenly, it seemed to me, as if I had passed through them myself. I believe that God sent us this intimate knowledge of how the poor suffer in order that we might sympathize with and help them.” Then Adelaide told him of the tenement and described each of the families. Some of them Jim had known in that other life which has been related in a former volume, and he inquired eagerly for the inventor, Stephen Trimble, and for the Rumples, and others. Adelaide told him, too, of the two turtle-doves, and of the sad death of Miss Cohens, and how the Terwilligers were soon to be established in one of the best suites. This last information pleased Jim very much.
“I like Terwilliger,” he said. “He is so funny; he drops all his h’s, and calls everything ‘bloomin’.’ Buttertub is a ‘bloomin’fool,’ and Stacey is a ‘bloomin’ swell,’ and when I got hurt he said it was a ‘bloomin’ shame,’ and Ricos was a ‘bloomin’ cad,’ and the fellows ought to have made a ‘bloomin’ row’ about it.”
That evening it happened that Mrs. Roseveldt was to give amusicale, and as Jim was feeling very bright, Adelaide had consented to take part. She was a creditable performer upon the violin, and had decided upon a romance by Rubenstein. She came to the school early in the afternoon for her music, and, to give her more of a visit with us, Mrs. Roseveldt had suggested that she should remain until after dinner, promising to send the carriage for her. Stacey was expected to call that afternoon and would keep Jim from being lonely.
We were all delighted to have Adelaide with us once more, for we had missed her greatly.
I was painting in the studio, and Professor Waite had just told me that it was all for the best that I could not probably go to Europe in vacation.
“You are not ready for it,” he said. “You will profit far more by European instruction after a year of thorough training in the ArtStudents’ League. I would advise you to attend it next winter. Our disappointments are often blessings in disguise. Providence keeps the things for which we are not prepared, saved on an upper shelf for us until we deserve them.”
As he said this, a joyful hub-bub rang out in the Amen Corner, led by a wild, Comanche shriek from Polo, who happened to be in the corridor: “Miss Adelaide’s come! Glory! Oh, glory!”
Professor Waite flushed and paled, took two steps impulsively toward the door, and then sat down before my easel, and began insanely to spoil a sky with idiotic dabs of green paint. I wondered whether Providence was saving up Adelaide until he deserved her. If so, the shelf was for the present a very high one.
To my surprise, Adelaide tapped at the studio door a moment later. She greeted Professor Waite cordially. “I am so glad to find you,” she said, “for I want to impose upon you for a little help.”
Professor Waite beamed.
“Stacey Fitz Simmons has asked me for a subject for an essay and I have suggested ‘The Athletic Contests of Ancient Greece,’as giving a subject in which he is greatly interested—athletic sports—a classical turn, suitable for the dignified occasion. At first he thought he could make nothing original of it, but would have to crib everything from books of reference; but it occurred to me that he might treat it from a rather new standpoint by taking his information from remains of ancient sculpture. I told him he had better study the casts at the Metropolitan Museum, as that would be the next best thing to attending the games at Corinth. Can you give him any additional sources of information?”
Professor Waite threw himself into the idea with enthusiasm and poured forth at once a dissertation which would have taken the highest honours at the competition. Then he made a memorandum of several works on art, which Stacey would do well to consult, and rummaged about in his portfolios for photographs of ancient statues of athletes and heroes, the procession from the frieze of the Parthenon, and the like.
When we finally got Adelaide into the Amen Corner, we scarcely gave her an opportunity to dress for themusicale, we had so many little nothings to talk over with her.
In the midst of it all Mr. Mudge called, and we opened fire upon him at once with the testimony which we had collected in favor of Polo and her brother. He was not greatly impressed with Stacey’s avowal that he had been out rowing with Terwilliger on the night of the Catacomb party.
“I had already ascertained that he was out late that night,” he said. “Miss Milly told me that young Fitz Simmons on the night of the drill threatened to attend your party. What assurance have we that he did not attend it with Terwilliger as his companion? A lark on the young gentleman’s part, and a clever opportunity to steal on the part of the trainer. My assistant has discovered that Terwilliger has had no dealings with his old associate Nimble Tim since his release from prison. Having to discard the idea that Tim was his companion, I have been looking about to find another possible one. I thank you for your assistance.”
Milly was very angry. With true womanly inconsistency she scouted the idea that Stacey could have had any part in the proceedings, although she was the very one who had at first suggested it.
“And here,” she said, “is something whichought to be perfectly convincing to any sane man. Polo told me last night that her brother heard Ricos and Buttertub boasting that they had fooled us all so nicely, and had seen our play. They made fun of Winnie, and said she had a little squeaky voice for so manly a part, and that it was ‘nuts’ to see us try to manage our togas. Oh! I’d just like to choke them.”
Mr. Mudge smiled. “It is very natural,” he said, “that Terwilliger should attempt to throw suspicion on some one else.”
“But you know that Buttertub and Ricos were out late that night,” I suggested.
“Ricos obtained permission from Colonel Grey to hear Professor Ware’s lecture on Architecture, at Columbia College.”
“And did they say they attended it?” Adelaide asked.
“Ricos so reported at the Barracks.”
“Well, I happen to know that Professor Ware delivers those lectures on Tuesday evenings,” Adelaide replied triumphantly; “and this was Wednesday night.”
“Are you sure of this?”
“I am sure because I attend the lectures, and neither of those boys were there.”
Mr. Mudge rubbed his brow with his pencil.“Terwilliger’s previous bad record counts against him,” he said persistently.
“Mr. Mudge,” I entreated, “will you do me the favor to call on a friend of ours, Mr. Van Silver, who knows all about that previous record of Terwilliger’s.”
“How is that?” Mr. Mudge asked, and I related my conversation with Mr. Van Silver on our return from the games.
“I will interview this gentleman,” said Mr. Mudge, “for though appearances are strongly against Terwilliger, I do not wish to act on appearances alone. And meantime, if you could find some other witness than young Fitz Simmons who could prove that he and the trainer were really boating on the Harlem the night of your party, and some other witness than Terwilliger to the admission of Ricos and his friend of the dairy nickname, the cause of Lawn Tennis and her brother would be materially strengthened.”
“I agree to produce such witnesses,” said Winnie rashly. “I have called it my mystery and I intend to fathom it, if it takes all summer.”
Mr. Mudge bowed and withdrew. His boots creaked down the hall a little way and then we heard a knock and the opening of a door.
“Girls, he’s calling on Miss Noakes,” Winnie cried, in high glee. “Now, what’s to hinder my running out on the balcony and showing her that two can play at the game of peek-a-boo.”
“Nothing but the honour of the Amen Corner,” Adelaide remarked. The words threw a wet blanket on Winnie’s proposal, but there was a flickering smile about Adelaide’s lips which showed that she was bent upon mischief, a rare thing for Adelaide.
“I will wait until Mr. Mudge is gone,” she said,—“I would not interrupt two young lovers for the world,—and then I think I’ll call on Miss Noakes. I want her to help me translate the visit of Æneas to Queen Dido.”
“That’s just like Winnie,” Milly exclaimed; “but you would never do such a thing.”
“Won’t I? You don’t half know me, Milly, dear,” and Adelaide actually fulfilled her threat.
Miss Noakes and Adelaide
“She expected him,” Adelaide exclaimed, when she returned. “I found her all gotten up regardless—that low-necked black net of hers! She did look too absurd for anything, but happy is no name for it. There was a blush on her withered old cheeks, and I actually believe a real tear in her eye. WhenI told her what I wanted her to translate, she glared at me haughtily, but I looked as demure as I could, and she went through it without flinching. ‘Men are deceivers ever, aren’t they, Miss Noakes?’ I said. ‘Just think of Pious Æneas behaving so cruelly to his dear Dido.’ ‘How should I know, child?’ she replied rather curtly.”
While we were laughing, Cerberus knocked to inform us that Mrs. Roseveldt’s carriage waited and had sent him to inquire for Miss Armstrong.
Adelaide found that Stacey had waited for her return. He woke to animation over the photographs. “This decides me,” he said. “I shall try for the prize. I didn’t imagine there was anything in Greek civilization that I cared a rap for; but that quoit player is fine. Just look at his muscles. I always thought that Discobolus was the fellow’s name. It never dawned upon me that it meant a quoit player. And this Mercury hardly needs wings on his heels, his legs are built for a runner. And isn’t that Fighting Gladiator superb? And that Hercules and Vulcan? Well, now, here is something curious. I do believe that Baker got his ‘set’ from that statue; the left arm is extended in the very same way,and the boys all thought it was original with him.”
So he ran on, his eyes kindling once more with enthusiasm. “Well, I must go now and ‘bone’ on my geometry—beastly bore; but Buttertub has been having very good marks lately, and I am not going to let him rank me.”
He had hardly gone before it was time for Adelaide’s Romance, and after that Mr. Van Silver came up to express his compliments.
“I was sorry Stacey could not stay to hear you play,” he said, “but he seems to have a virtuous fit on, and said he must hurry to the barracks and spend the evening in study. Perhaps, however, it was only an excuse for mischief.”
“Do you think so?” Adelaide asked. “It has seemed to me of late that Stacey has had little heart for anything, even for mischief.”
“That’s a fact. I haven’t seen him on the river since the games, and he used to be very fond of rowing.”
Adelaide gave a little gesture of despair. “There,” she said, “I forgot to ask him whether any one knew of his going out boating, the night of our party, with Terwilliger,and Winnie was so particular about it. How provoked she will be with me.”
“Why is it that you young ladies have developed an overweening interest in Terwilliger?” asked Mr. Van Silver. They were sitting on the staircase apart from the others, and Adelaide replied:
“It is because he is suspected of a robbery which has occurred at our school. We have been cautioned not to mention it, but I think I may say as much to you, for Mr. Mudge, the detective who has been engaged to investigate the affair, told me this afternoon that he intended to interview you in regard to Terwilliger’s part in the crime for which he was sent to prison.”
A cloud passed over Mr. Van Silver’s face. “I hoped that thing was dead and buried,” he said. “It only proves that nothing is really ever settled unless it is settled right. If it will do Terwilliger any good, I will testify openly, as I ought to have done in the first place.”
Adelaide looked at Mr. Van Silver wonderingly. He understood and said quickly, “I cannot bear to lose your respect, Miss Armstrong; perhaps I had better tell you just how it all happened.”
“Not to gratify any curiosity on my part,”Adelaide replied; “you might be sorry afterward. And if it is something that the world has no business to know——”
“TheWorld!Heaven forbid that an account of the affair should get into theWorld, theHerald, or any of our newspapers. I would rather no one knew anything about it; but when I have told you the entire story you will be able to judge how much of it I ought to confide to your friend Mudge, in order to aid Terwilliger. You see, young Cairngorm is a regular cub. His father sent him across on his yacht to us. He wanted mother to comb him out, introduce him in New York circles, and get him married, if she could, to some American heiress. If you girls only knew what scamps some of those slips of nobility are you would not be so crazy for titles.”
Adelaide’s eyes snapped. “I do not care a fig for a title,” she said indignantly. “I think a great deal more of an enterprising, hard-working, true-hearted American, than of a mere name. I think that the American pride of having accomplished some worthy work in life is much more allowable than the English pride of belonging to a leisure class.”
“I beg pardon. I did not intend to be personal.When my mother saw what sort of a specimen had been confided to her hands, she made no efforts in the matrimonial direction, but simply tried to keep the chap out of harm’s way for a season, using me as her aide-de-camp. He had a passion for betting and gaming, and I was at my wits end sometimes to head him off. Terwilliger came over with him, you know; but he left the yacht on its arrival for he wanted to establish himself permanently in America. Cairngorm liked Terwilliger, tipped him handsomely on parting, and asked me to take an interest in him. I promised to look out for him and immediately forgot his existence. Terwilliger drifted about, waiting for something to turn up, and Satan, who is the only employer who is on the lookout for poor fellows who are out of work, appeared to Terwilliger, in the person of a new acquaintance, Limber Tim. Tim told him that he was connected with a sort of club devoted to athletics. It was really a gambling saloon. Tim knew of Terwilliger’s acquaintance with Cairngorm, and he promised Terwilliger a five dollar bill if he would persuade Cairngorm to patronize his establishment. ‘Tell him,’ he said, ‘that we are to have a very select game of poker to-night,only gentlemen present, and get him to come down.’
“Now, how Terwilliger happened to be such a lamb, I can’t say; but he had never heard of poker, and he asked Tim if it was anything like single stick. This amused Tim and he did not undeceive Terwilliger, who appeared at our house in search of Cairngorm, and, not finding him, left a labored epistle inviting him to come to No. — Bowery, and see some fun in the way of a sleight of hand performance with a ‘poker.’ Cairngorm saw through it, though Terwilliger did not, and went out after dinner without explaining where he was going. He took the note with him for fear he might forget the number of the house, and thought that he replaced it in his pocket, after consulting it under a corner gaslight; but, as his luck would have it, he dropped the note there, and a policeman, who had seen him read it, picked it up. The policeman knew that the house was a gambling saloon, and immediately surmised the truth, that this finely dressed young swell had been decoyed to his ruin. Terwilliger had begun his letter simply, ‘Nobble Sur,’ and our address was not on the letter, so that there was no clue to Cairngorm’s identity; but he had signed his ownname in full, and the astute policeman had this bit of convincing evidence of Terwilliger’s complicity in the confidence game.
“We knew nothing of this at the time, but it was late at night before Cairngorm returned to our house, and we had all been very anxious about him. His statements were to the point, for he had been thoroughly frightened. He had lost heavily, and in the midst of the game the police had raided the place, and he had escaped by springing into a dumb-waiter, which had landed him in a kitchen, where he had remained secreted until all was quiet.
“‘It is very fortunate for you,’ my father said sternly, ‘that the police did not secure you, for in that case the reporters would have had a sensation for the morning papers, and your noble father would have learned of your lodgment in the Tombs. As it is, you had better leave New York at once. Your yacht is at Newport. I advise you to report at home as soon as possible. It is your own fault that your American visit has had so sudden and so disgraceful an ending.’
“I saw Cairngorm off, much relieved to get him off my hands, for we had very little in common, and he was so lacking in principle that my feeling for him was only one of contemptuouspity. On our way to Newport Cairngorm told me that Terwilliger was perfectly innocent of any connivance with the gamblers, and that as soon as he saw that they were playing for money had attempted to induce him to leave the place, using every persuasion possible, and making the gamblers very angry with him. They had tried to put him out of the room, but he had insisted on remaining, and when the police appeared it was Terwilliger who had shown Cairngorm into the dumb-waiter. Immediately after Cairngorm’s departure to Scotland, I sailed for a long trip around the world, so that it was over a year before I returned to New York.
“What was my chagrin to find that Terwilliger had been arrested and sent to prison with the gamblers. My father had succeeded in keeping Cairngorm’s name out of the papers, but as he believed that Terwilliger had knowingly acted as a decoy he had made no attempt to save him. Terwilliger would not disclose Cairngorm’s name at the trial when confronted with the letter which he acknowledged having written. Nor did he write him asking his assistance, so determined was he not to implicate his patron in the affair. I looked up Terwilliger, and finding that he hadonly a few weeks more to serve, set myself to work in earnest to secure him a good position. I told the entire story to Colonel Grey, who met him with me, on his release, and feeling confident that he had not been contaminated by his prison associations, gave him the position of trainer at his gymnasium. He has had a good record there ever since, and I have been very unhappy that he has suffered so much on my graceless friend’s account. If I had known that an innocent person was to be sent to prison I would never have helped him away after his scrape, but would have insisted on his disclosing the entire truth, and braving the consequences like a man. As it is I am going to make Cairngorm do something for Terwilliger this summer. One of my grooms does not care to go to Europe with me, and if Terwilliger has nothing better to do while the cadets are on vacation, I will take him across. I shall bring him back in the fall in time for the opening of the school.”
Adelaide was intensely interested in this story. “You will tell it all to Mr. Mudge, will you not?” she asked, “and convince him that Terwilliger was unjustly imprisoned.”
Mr. Van Silver promised to do this, and soon after took his leave.
Adelaide had not intended to tell Jim anything of the suspicion which had fallen upon the trainer, but Jim had left his bedroom and come out upon the landing to listen to the music, and had overheard all of Mr. Van Silver’s account.
When Adelaide went in to kiss Jim goodnight, she found his cheeks hot and his eyes quite wild. “You will go to Mr. Mudge right away, will you not, sister?” he urged. And he was not at all satisfied when Adelaide assured him that this was not necessary, as Mr. Mudge had promised to call on Mr. Van Silver on the following day.
The next day Mr. and Mrs. Armstrong arrived, and Jim’s delight threw him into a fever of excitement. Such alternations of happiness and worry were bad for the boy, who needed calm, and Mr. Armstrong wished to remove him to Old Point Comfort, but Jim begged that he might not be taken from the city until the closing exercises of the Cadet School. “I shall be well enough to attend them, I know,” he pleaded, “and I want to see sister graduate, and to know how the mystery turns out, and whether Terwilliger is all right.”
To gratify the boy Mr. Armstrong tookfurnished apartments fronting on Central Park, and Mrs. Armstrong devoted herself to the care of her little invalid, while Adelaide returned to school.
Commencement was near at hand, and Adelaide felt that she must work hard to pass the final examination creditably. Our life at Madame’s was not all frolic, though I am conscious that my story would seem to indicate that such was the case. Naturally, a full report of the solid lessons which we learned would make a very stupid story, but the lessons formed our daily diet, and the scrapes and good times that I have chronicled occurred only at intervals.
We had what Milly called a thousand miles of desert, without even the least little oasis of fun, between the Inter-scholastic Games and the examinations. Winnie had taken a fit of serious study, and when Winnie studied she did it, as she played, with all her might. Our only lark for quite a time was a house-warming which we gave the Terwilligers. Polo told us how she was fitting up the little flat of three rooms with the assistance of her brother, and it certainly seemed as if the cloud which had shadowed her had drifted away. The largest room was the kitchen, also used as a dining-room.Adelaide had provided a range, and many other things, with the rooms. The cadets clubbed together and made Terwilliger a handsome present in money, with which he purchased a lounge, which served for his own bed, and an easy chair for his mother; and our King’s Daughters Ten provided all the tinware and crockery. Madame sent down a nice bedstead and some bedding. Professor Waite contributed a neatly framed portrait of Polo, and Miss Noakes gave a box of soap. Polo purchased the table linen, towels, etc., with her own earnings, and Miss Billings hemmed them and the curtains, which were made of cheese cloth. Mrs. Roseveldt sent her carriage to take Mrs. Terwilliger from the hospital to her new home and gave a carpet, and Mr. Van Silver ordered a barrel of flour and a half ton of coal. Mrs. Armstrong selected a lamp as Jim’s present, and took the two children from the Home to one of the large stores and provided them well with clothing for the summer before delivering them to their mother. It was a very happy and united family that met together that evening in Adelaide’s tenement, and Mrs. Terwilliger, who had not been credited by her acquaintances as being a religious woman, exclaimedreverently, “It seems to me we’d orter be grateful to Providence for all these mercies;” and her son responded emphatically:
“Grateful to Providence? You bet your life, I am!”
Thensuddenly, just as they were sitting down to the first meal in their new home, there was a knock at the door, and a policeman said: “I am sorry, Terwilliger, but you are wanted again.”“What for?” the trainer asked, thunderstruck.“Mysterious robbery up at Madame ——’s boarding-school,” replied the officer. “Mudge gave me the order for your arrest.”“Go and tell Mr. Van Silver,” Terwilliger said to Polo. “He won’t let me go to prison again.” And Polo was off like the wind.Mr. Van Silver came at once, and gave bail for Terwilliger’s appearance at trial, so thathe did not go to prison; but this action of Mr. Mudge’s showed that he felt sure that Terwilliger was the thief, and threw us all into consternation. Mr. Mudge had called on Mr. Van Silver, but had unfortunately not found him in, and while he had not received the explanation which had been given Adelaide, one of his detectives informed him that Terwilliger had made arrangements to leave the country soon in Mr. Van Silver’s employ, and that he had lately been expending large sums in extravagantly fitting up an apartment for his family. It was the fear that his man might escape him, which had precipitated Mr. Mudge’s action. He felt that the case was a pretty clear one, and that the trial would develop more evidence.Winnie was at her wits’ end. She had promised to produce witnesses proving that Stacey and Terwilliger were on the river the night of the Catacomb party; and in her desperation she wrote directly to Stacey in regard to it. Unfortunately, Stacey could think of no one who had seen them just at the time when the boys were known to have been in the school building, and Stacey’s own testimony would not be regarded as of sufficient weight to clear Terwilliger, as Mr. Mudgesuspected Stacey of being the trainer’s companion. This rendered Stacey very indignant. It seemed to him that he had trouble enough before this, and he was desperate now. His father, Commodore Fitz Simmons, was a naval officer, a bluff old sea dog, who had married, late in life, a refined and beautiful woman. She was lonely in her husband’s long absences, and her heart knit itself to her son. Her husband had planned that Stacey should follow his career, but when he understood how this would afflict his wife, he partly relinquished this idea.“You can have the training of the boy till he is eighteen,” he said to his wife. “If he does you credit up to that time, I shall feel sure of him for the rest of his life, and he may have a Harvard education and follow whatever profession he pleases. But if he takes advantage of petticoat government, and develops a tendency to go wrong, I’ll put him on a school ship, and let the young scamp learn what discipline is.”Commodore Fitz Simmons had been away for a long cruise, but Stacey’s mother now wrote from Washington that the ship was in, and that the commodore and she would take great pleasure in attending the closing exercisesof his school. She hoped that her son would distinguish himself at them, and that there was no doubt about his passing his Harvard examinations, for his father had referred to their agreement that Stacey must go to sea if he had not improved his opportunities. “And you know,” she added, “that I could never bear to have you both on that terrible ocean.”Stacey could not bear the thought, either, for he loathed the sea, and he suddenly faced the fact that he had not been distinguishing himself in his studies and had no certainty of passing the examinations. This suspicion of being implicated in an escapade which had a possible crime connected with it, was more than he could bear. When he read, in Winnie’s letter, “Mr. Mudge suspects you,” he threw the letter upon the floor and uttered such a cry that Buttertub, who was studying in the room, sprang to him, thinking that he had hurt himself.“I don’t care who knows it,” Stacey cried, beside himself with despair; “I am suspected of being a thief, and it will kill my mother, and my father will just about kill me.”Buttertub gave a low whistle. “It can’t be so bad as that,” he said; “what do you mean?”“Some fellows sneaked into the girls’ party, and they think I was one of them and Terwilliger the other.”“Well, what if they do?” Buttertub asked. “There is nothing so killing about a little thing like that.”“Perhaps not; but there was a robbery committed in the school that very night, and that’s the milk of the cocoanut.”“They can’t suspect acadetof being a burglar.”“Well, it looks like it,” Stacey replied. “They’ve arrested Terwilliger, and I’ve just had warning that my turn may come next, unless I can prove that I was boating that night, and I can’t.”“Ginger!” exclaimed Buttertub. “You are in a mess.” He was on the point of confessing his own share in the escapade, when he reflected that it was not entirely his own secret, he must see Ricos first. Buttertub was naturally good-natured, and he had no idea that the frolic would take so serious a turn, but his brain worked slowly, and he did not quite see what he ought to do.Stacey was nearly wild. He strode up and down the room. “I haven’t seen father for two years, and mother has written him suchglowing accounts of me that he expects great things. It would be bad enough, without this last trouble, to have him find out what a slump I am. I can never look him in the face—never.”“Fathers are pretty rough on us fellows, sometimes,” said Buttertub. He was thinking of his own father, bombastic old Bishop Buttertub, and wondering, after all, whether he could quite bear to shoulder all the consequences of his frolic. When the Bishop was angry he had been compared to a wild bull of Bashan, and Buttertub, Jr., would rather have faced a locomotive on a single track bridge than his paternal parent on a rampage. He wished now that he had not yielded to the wiles of the entrancing Cynthia, and attended the party. “Hang that girl!” he growled aloud.“Who?” asked Stacey.“Miss Vaughn,” Buttertub replied. “Some one was saying you meant to invite her to the declamations. You are welcome to for all me.”“Hang all girls,” replied Stacey. “I shan’t invite any one.”Buttertub rose awkwardly. “Don’t be too blue, Stacey,” he said kindly. “Something’sbound to turn up,” and he ambled briskly off to find Ricos. “It’s tough,” he said to himself, “but I’m no sneak, so here goes.”But Ricos was not in the barracks, and Buttertub, thankful for a little postponement of the evil day, went into the great hall to practice his declamation. He had chosen a dignified oration, and he possessed a sonorous voice and a pompous manner. Colonel Grey smiled as he heard him.“You remind me strikingly of your father,” he said. “I am sure that I shall see you in sacred orders one of these days. Perhaps you too will become a bishop.”Buttertub hung his head. “Better be a decent, honorable man, first,” he thought. The boys were cheering over in the gymnasium: “Hip! hip! hip!”“Yes—hypocrite,” he said to himself, “I’ll punch Ricos until he consents to making a clean breast of it.”But there was no need for resorting to this means of grace. Deliverance was coming, and, strange to say, through Ricos himself. Ricos had more food for remorse than Buttertub. His sister had written him from time to time of Jim’s condition, and this morning he had received a letter which woke the pangsof conscience. Mr. Armstrong had thoughtlessly told Jim of Terwilliger’s arrest, and the news had affected him very seriously. He could not sleep, and he could talk and think of nothing else. The physician feared that his reason would give way. He sent for Stacey, and his friend went to him immediately, but he could give him no encouragement, and his call only made Jim worse. As Stacey left the door he met Ricos.“You had better not call on Armstrong to-day,” Stacey said. “He is awfully sick. I shouldn’t wonder if he died. He had an attack something like this last year, but the doctor pulled him through because there was nothing on his mind to worry him; but now everything seems to be in a snarl, and he isn’t strong enough to bear it. You come back with me, seeing you ain’t likely to do him any good.”“It is of needcessity,” Ricos said. His face was white and scared. “Rosario, she write me that he will die, and if I see him not before, and assure myself that he carry no ill-will of me to the Paradiso, then my life shall be one Purgatorio. Indeed, I must see him; it is of great needcessity.”Mrs. Armstrong also hesitated when Ricospresented himself, but Jim heard his voice and called him eagerly.“Ricos! Ricos! is it really you? Oh, I’m so glad!”“Of a surety, it is I,” Ricos replied. “I have come to ask your forgiveness. Alas! I am one miserable.”“I will forgive you, Ricos, if you will tell Colonel Grey all about it, so that Terwilliger need not go to prison. You know they have arrested him, and really it is he and Stacey who ought to forgive you, and not I at all.”“I do not comprehend of what you refer. I ask you to forgive me for your hurt——”“But that is nothing! I am sorry that I beat you, Ricos. I wanted to win awfully, but I know now that you wanted the medal a great deal more than I did, and I’m so sorry Stacey did not run the best. Mother read me a verse that seemed just to be written for our games. I read it to Stacey and he said it would help him. Mother, please read it to Ricos, perhaps it will help him, too.”And Mrs. Armstrong read:Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall. But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mountup with wings as eagles; they shall run and not be weary; and they shall walk and not faint.Ricos looked still more frightened. The Bible to him was a book only for priests. Jim must certainly be at the point of death, or he would not ask to have it read; but Jim spoke up earnestly:“I suppose, Ricos, that waiting on the Lord means doing our whole duty, and I want you to do something for my sake. I want you to tell that you went to the girl’s Cat-combing party. You know you went, Ricos. We are all sure of it, but nobody can prove it. Please tell Colonel Grey. It would be such a noble thing to do.”“And you will make me assurance of your forgiveness?”“With all my heart, and I will stick up for you with all the boys.”“Thank you, my friend; now I shall enjoy some comfort of the mind. And you will tell those in Paradise that Ricos is not so devil as they may have heard.”Jim looked puzzled. He did not quite understand that Ricos’s motive was fear of retribution. He thought that Jim was going to die, and he felt himself in a measure responsible for his death; but Jim’s forgivenessand promise of intercession in his behalf was a boon to be purchased at any price, and he readily promised to disclose everything. Jim fell back upon his pillow, exhausted but happy, and fell asleep for the first time in many hours.Ricos hurried back to the barracks. He had no scruples about implicating Buttertub in his confession, and he would have gone to Colonel Grey without consulting his friend had Buttertub not been on the lookout for him. They were each relieved to find that they had come separately to similar conclusions, and they sought Colonel Grey together.They were obliged to wait some time, for their instructor was closeted with Mr. Mudge.“I am just going out with this gentleman,” said Colonel Grey, as he noticed them standing in the hall. “Is it anything which cannot wait?”“It is of needcessity,” said Ricos, and then his tongue clave to the roof of his mouth, and Buttertub made the confession for both.“Your acknowledgment of your fault comes just in time,” said Colonel Grey. “Make your statement once more to this gentleman, and it may save an innocent classmatefrom disgrace, and our unfortunate Terwilliger from unjust imprisonment.”“You shall imprison me,” said Ricos, in a theatrical manner. “That will make me one supreme happiness.”Buttertub turned pale, but did not falter, and told the story frankly and simply.“So you are the two gentlemen who introduced yourselves in disguise into a young ladies’ boarding-school,” said Mr. Mudge. “Will you tell me how you made the acquaintance of Terwilliger’s sister, the young lady they call Lawn Tennis, who gave you admittance.”“But it was not Terwilliger’s sister at all. Miss Vaughn threw us out the key to the turret door,” said Buttertub.“A reliable witness to the affair assures me that it was Lawn Tennis. She was recognized partly by a Tam O’Shanter cap which she is in the habit of wearing.”“Miss Vaughn wore a Tam O’Shanter when she looked out of the window. She had it pulled down over her forehead.”“In view of these disclosures,” Mr. Mudge said to Colonel Grey, “I shall withdraw my prosecution of Terwilliger. I have not sufficient evidence to make out a case againsthim, since it is now shown that the other young gentleman, Mr. Fitz Simmons, did not visit the school on the night in question, and consequently had no motive for testifying falsely. I think any court would admit him as a competent witness in Terwilliger’s behalf, and consider thealibiestablished. There will be no trial of Terwilliger. I must confess myself completely at fault in this matter.”Buttertub drew a long breath. He felt dazed and sick. Ricos swayed from side to side, and sank into a chair. Colonel Grey was bowing Mr. Mudge out, and Buttertub poured a glass of water and handed it to Ricos in his absence. “Don’t give in yet,” he said; “we’ve fixed it all right for Fitz Simmons and Terwilliger, but we’ve got to face the music now on our own account.”But Ricos had gone to the extent of his capabilities, and had fainted dead away. Colonel Grey returned and assisted Buttertub in restoring him to consciousness. His first words were, “When is it that we go to the prison?”“My dear boy,” said the Colonel, “you were not suspected of any connection with the robbery. But if you imagined that you would be, and made the avowal which youdid in the face of that apprehension, you deserve all the more credit.”“Shall we not be expelled, sir?” Buttertub asked.“Never! My school has need of young men who can acknowledge a fault so honourably. I consider that your generous conduct has wiped the misdemeanour from existence. You have suffered sufficiently, and I have no fear that such a thing will ever occur again. I shall only ask you to make this acknowledgment complete by sending Madame —— a written apology for intruding in so unwarrantable a manner upon her school. I shall call upon her personally and deliver it.”“And my father will not feel that I have disgraced him,” Buttertub said slowly, unconscious that he was speaking aloud.“I shall tell the Bishop,” said Colonel Grey, “that he has a son to be proud of.”Ricos staggered off to bed, and Buttertub sought Stacey and reported.“You are a trump!” Stacey cried, “I never realized before what a hero you are. I beg your pardon for every unkind thing I have thought or said about you, and if you will accept my friendship it’s yours forever. It istime for supper now, and after that we’ll find Terwilliger and tell him the news.”Jim improved rapidly after this. If Ricos had known that he would recover he might not have confessed, and there was a lingering feeling in his mind that Jim had no right to get well, and was taking a mean advantage of him in not fulfilling his part of the bargain and winging his way to Paradise, to tell the angels that Ricos was not such a bad fellow after all. Still, he never really regretted Jim’s recovery or his own avowal. It cleared his conscience of a great load, and the boys, having heard that Ricos had madeamende honorable, no longer complimented him with the terms “chump and mucker,” but accepted his presents of guava jelly and other West India delicacies, and as he had the Spanish gift for guitar-playing, elected him to the banjo club.A little after this Mrs. Roseveldt gave her last reception for that season. She had not forgotten the proposed plan of the tennis tournament at Narragansett Pier, and she invited Stacey to come and talk it up with Milly.In spite of his declaration of war against all womankind, Stacey accepted the invitation eagerly. Stacey was himself again, yet not quite his old giddy self. The disappointmentand trouble which he had experienced had changed him for the better. He was less of a fop and more of a man, than when he tossed his baton so airily before his drum corps at the annual drill. But he was still something of an exquisite in dress. His father had given him permission to order a dress suit for the occasion of prize declamation, and Stacey besieged his tailor until he agreed to have it done in time for Mrs. Roseveldt’s reception.Milly went home the day before. We had all been invited, but had decided virtuously that we could not spare the time from our studies, while I had, as an additional reason, the knowledge that I had no costume suitable for such a grand society affair. Milly described it all afterward, and I enjoyed her description more than I would have cared for the party itself.The mandolin club played softly in the dining-room bay-window, hidden by a bank of palms and ferns, and the lights glowed through rose-coloured shades. The supper-table, in honour of a riding club to which Mr. and Mrs. Roseveldt belonged, whose members were the guests of the evening, as far as possible suggested their favorite exercise. The table itself was horseshoe in shape; saddle-rockoysters, and tongue sandwiches were served. There was whipped cream, the ices were in the form of top-boots, saddles, jockey-hats, and riding whips, and the bonbonnières were satin beaver hats.Stacey appeared early in the evening. It was the first time that Milly had seen him in a dress suit, and Milly confided to me privately that he seemed to her to have suddenly grown several inches taller. He was very grave and dignified, not at all like the old rollicking, boyish Stacey with whom Milly was familiar. Milly, quite inexplicably to herself, felt a little awed by him and was at loss for a subject of conversation. She referred to the Inter-scholastic Games, and Stacey scowled so violently that Milly saw that this was an unfortunate beginning, and hastened to change the subject to that of the proposed tournament at Narragansett Pier. They were practically alone, for the parlor had been deserted by the onslaught on the supper table, and Stacey said confidentially:“I’ll tell you just how it is, Milly; I ought not to take part in that tournament.”“Oh, do!” pleaded Milly.Milly and Stacey“I will if you say so. It shall be just as you say, for I’ll do anything for you; but if Igo into this thing I lose every last chance of passing my examinations for Harvard. All the same, I’ll do it if you want me to.”“No, no;” murmured Milly; “not at such a cost; but it can’t be as bad as that. What do you mean?”“I mean that I have made a precious fool of myself all winter. I have gone in for athletics at the expense of my studies, and I’ve failed in both; and now that the time is coming for my examinations it will be a tight squeeze if I pass. I made up my mind to reform after I extinguished myself at the games, and I’ve been cramming ever since. Do you know what the boys call me now?”“A regular dig, I suppose.”“No, that’s obsolete. At Harvard a hard student is a ‘grind,’ and a very hard student is a ‘long-haired grind.’ Woodpecker is complimentary enough to call me a ‘Sutherland Sister hair invigorator grind.’”Milly laughed.“No laughing matter, I tell you. I’ve broken training. I haven’t been to the oval, or on the river, or riding in the park but once since the games. Instead of that, I put myself in the hands of our Professor of Mathematics, and I am letting him give me a privateoverhauling. His motto is, ‘Find out what the boys don’t like and give them lots of it.’”“How horrid!” Milly murmured sympathetically.“He’s just right. If you want to put it in a little kinder way, you might say, ‘Find out where the boys are weak, and then make them strong.’ The trouble is I’m weak all through, so I’m having a rather serious time just now. I shall have to sit up till one o’clock to pay for the pleasure of this interview. The examinations take place between the 25th and 27th of June, inclusive. If I go into this tournament, or even think of it before then, I lose every ghost of a chance for Harvard, and will have to take to the sea, and I loathe it. But that’s nothing—if you want me to do it. You don’t half know me, Milly. I tell you, it’s nothing at all—why I’d give up life itself for you. There isn’t anything I wouldn’t give up for your sake. No, you shan’t run away. We’ve got to have it out some time, and we might as well understand one another now. I love you, Milly; I have always loved you; and if you don’t like me—why, I have no use for Harvard, or life either.”He looked so despairing and yet so wildly eager, that Milly was very sorry for him.“Of course, I like you, Stacey,” she said kindly.“You do?” he cried. “I can’t believe it. You are fooling me.”“No, Stacey; but you are fooling yourself. You would be very sorry, by and bye, if I took you at your word now, and snapped you up before you had time to know your own mind. Why, Stacey, we are both of us too young to know whether we are in earnest. We ought to wait, and we ought neither of us to be bound in any way. Perhaps everything will seem very different to us four years from now. Don’t you think so yourself?”“I can never change,” Stacey asserted confidently.“But I may,” Milly said with a smile, thinking of her own foolish little heart, and of how appropriate the advice she was giving to Stacey was to her own case.“I don’t believe you will,” Stacey replied. “I am sure it’s a great comfort to know that you care for me a little; it’s a great deal better than I expected.”“Did I say so? I didn’t mean to,” Milly exclaimed in consternation.“No, you haven’t committed yourself to anything, but you have intimated that I mayask you again after I have graduated from Harvard. And since I desire that time to come as soon as possible, I presume I have your permission to give up the tennis tournament and go on preparing for my examinations.”“Yes, certainly. But I’m sorry for the Home. I don’t quite see how we are going to raise the money for the annex. Still, I suppose, as students, our first duty is to our studies.”“Exactly. But vacation is coming and we will see what we can do for the Home then. If your mother will only postpone the time I will see if I can get the boys together in July.”The old butler came in at this juncture with a tray of ices. He was followed by Mr. Van Silver, who protested against his introducing “coolness” between old friends, but who remained all the same, and spoiled their opportunity for any further conversation on the subject uppermost in Stacey’s mind.“I’ve an idea, Stacey,” said Mr. Van Silver. “I want you to go to Europe with me this summer. You’d enjoy the trip I propose to make among the Scottish hills and lakes. I know your parents will approve, for it willbe a regular education for you, especially with my improving society thrown in.” Mr. Van Silver winked as he said this, and he was greatly surprised when Stacey answered promptly:“Awfully kind of you, Mr. Van Silver, but I can’t go possibly.”“Why not?”“Well, first of all, I’m bound to be conditioned on some of my studies at my Harvard examinations, and I shall have to coach all summer in a less agreeable way than the one which you suggest. Then I have engaged to get up a tennis tournament at the Pier——”“Tennis! what’s that to such a trip as I propose. Don’t be an idiot, Stacey.”“It is really not an ordinary tournament,” Milly added, with a desire to make peace between the two. “But, Mr. Van Silver, when do you sail? Perhaps Stacey can go after the tournament.”“I sail the last of June.”“Then there’s no use talking,” said Stacey.“Unless you could join Mr. Van Silver by going over later.”Stacey shook his head vigorously. He had no desire to be expatriated this summer.“I comprehend,” said Mr. Van Silver. “The Pier possesses greater attractions than I can offer, but you needn’t try to humbug me into believing that tennis is the magnet which draws you thither. Tell that to the unsophisticated, but strive not to impose on your grandfather. He has been young himself.”Mrs. Roseveldt came in with quite a party from the supper, and Stacey promptly took his leave.When Milly confided this to me,—as she did nearly all of her joys and sorrows,—I could not help expressing my sympathy for Stacey.“Stacey will recover,” she said confidently. “Men are never as constant as we women.” And Milly nodded her head with the gravity of an elderly matron who had experienced all the vicissitudes of life, and who could now regard the ardours of youthful affection and despair with a benign tolerance, as foreseeing the end from the beginning.“Do you know, Tib,” she continued, “Mr. Van Silver was joking in the way that he always does about Stacey, when papa came to us; and papa said, ‘Don’t put such notions in my little girl’s head, Mr. Van Silver. Stacey has his college course before him and may be able to quote from my favourite poet when itis over.’ With that he took down an old volume of Praed and read something which is so cute that I copied it afterward. Here it is:We parted; months and years rolled by;We met again four summers after.Our parting was all sob and sigh;Our meeting was all mirth and laughter.For in my heart’s most secret cellThere had been many other lodgers:And she was not the ball-room’s belleBut only—Mrs. Something Rogers.“I wonder whether I shall be Mrs. Rogers, or Mrs. Smith, or Mrs. What? I’d rather be just Miss Milly Roseveldt.”“And how about Professor Waite?” I asked, hardly daring to believe that the fresh wind of common sense had cleared away the old miasmatic glamour.“Oh, Adelaide must repent. They would make such a romantic couple. I have set my heart on it. And Tib, I believe she does like him, just a little, though she hasn’t found it out herself yet. I am going to take charge of their case, and some day you and I will be bridesmaids, Tib. I’ve planned just how it will be. It’s a pity Celeste acted so. Do you really think Miss Billings will be equal to a wedding dress?”“What, yours, Milly?”“Mine? No, indeed. I don’t want to be married. It’s a great deal nicer not to be. Don’t you think so?”“Milly, darling, I really believe that you have recovered from that old folly.”“Why, of course I have—ages and centuries ago.” And Milly laughed a wholesome, gay-hearted laugh, which astonished as much as it pleased me.“Alas for woman’s constancy,” I laughed; “but, indeed, Milly, I am very glad that you are so thoroughly heart-whole. We will keep a jolly old maids’ hall together, only you must not encourage poor Stacey.”“Why not?” asked the incomprehensible Milly. “I am sure he is a great deal happier with matters left unsettled than he would have been if I had told him that I hated him; and that would not have been true either.”“You told him that he might ask you again after he graduates, and you certainly ought not to allow him any shadow of hope when you know positively that you can never love him.”What was my surprise to hear Milly reply very seriously: “But I don’t know that, Tib. Four years may change everything. Staceymay not care a bit for me at the end of his college course. In that case, I’m sure I shan’t repine. But then, again, if he should happen to hold out faithful, perhaps my stony heart may be touched by the spectacle of such devotion. Who knows?”And Milly looked up archly, with a pretty blush that augured ill—for the old maids’ hall.
Thensuddenly, just as they were sitting down to the first meal in their new home, there was a knock at the door, and a policeman said: “I am sorry, Terwilliger, but you are wanted again.”
“What for?” the trainer asked, thunderstruck.
“Mysterious robbery up at Madame ——’s boarding-school,” replied the officer. “Mudge gave me the order for your arrest.”
“Go and tell Mr. Van Silver,” Terwilliger said to Polo. “He won’t let me go to prison again.” And Polo was off like the wind.
Mr. Van Silver came at once, and gave bail for Terwilliger’s appearance at trial, so thathe did not go to prison; but this action of Mr. Mudge’s showed that he felt sure that Terwilliger was the thief, and threw us all into consternation. Mr. Mudge had called on Mr. Van Silver, but had unfortunately not found him in, and while he had not received the explanation which had been given Adelaide, one of his detectives informed him that Terwilliger had made arrangements to leave the country soon in Mr. Van Silver’s employ, and that he had lately been expending large sums in extravagantly fitting up an apartment for his family. It was the fear that his man might escape him, which had precipitated Mr. Mudge’s action. He felt that the case was a pretty clear one, and that the trial would develop more evidence.
Winnie was at her wits’ end. She had promised to produce witnesses proving that Stacey and Terwilliger were on the river the night of the Catacomb party; and in her desperation she wrote directly to Stacey in regard to it. Unfortunately, Stacey could think of no one who had seen them just at the time when the boys were known to have been in the school building, and Stacey’s own testimony would not be regarded as of sufficient weight to clear Terwilliger, as Mr. Mudgesuspected Stacey of being the trainer’s companion. This rendered Stacey very indignant. It seemed to him that he had trouble enough before this, and he was desperate now. His father, Commodore Fitz Simmons, was a naval officer, a bluff old sea dog, who had married, late in life, a refined and beautiful woman. She was lonely in her husband’s long absences, and her heart knit itself to her son. Her husband had planned that Stacey should follow his career, but when he understood how this would afflict his wife, he partly relinquished this idea.
“You can have the training of the boy till he is eighteen,” he said to his wife. “If he does you credit up to that time, I shall feel sure of him for the rest of his life, and he may have a Harvard education and follow whatever profession he pleases. But if he takes advantage of petticoat government, and develops a tendency to go wrong, I’ll put him on a school ship, and let the young scamp learn what discipline is.”
Commodore Fitz Simmons had been away for a long cruise, but Stacey’s mother now wrote from Washington that the ship was in, and that the commodore and she would take great pleasure in attending the closing exercisesof his school. She hoped that her son would distinguish himself at them, and that there was no doubt about his passing his Harvard examinations, for his father had referred to their agreement that Stacey must go to sea if he had not improved his opportunities. “And you know,” she added, “that I could never bear to have you both on that terrible ocean.”
Stacey could not bear the thought, either, for he loathed the sea, and he suddenly faced the fact that he had not been distinguishing himself in his studies and had no certainty of passing the examinations. This suspicion of being implicated in an escapade which had a possible crime connected with it, was more than he could bear. When he read, in Winnie’s letter, “Mr. Mudge suspects you,” he threw the letter upon the floor and uttered such a cry that Buttertub, who was studying in the room, sprang to him, thinking that he had hurt himself.
“I don’t care who knows it,” Stacey cried, beside himself with despair; “I am suspected of being a thief, and it will kill my mother, and my father will just about kill me.”
Buttertub gave a low whistle. “It can’t be so bad as that,” he said; “what do you mean?”
“Some fellows sneaked into the girls’ party, and they think I was one of them and Terwilliger the other.”
“Well, what if they do?” Buttertub asked. “There is nothing so killing about a little thing like that.”
“Perhaps not; but there was a robbery committed in the school that very night, and that’s the milk of the cocoanut.”
“They can’t suspect acadetof being a burglar.”
“Well, it looks like it,” Stacey replied. “They’ve arrested Terwilliger, and I’ve just had warning that my turn may come next, unless I can prove that I was boating that night, and I can’t.”
“Ginger!” exclaimed Buttertub. “You are in a mess.” He was on the point of confessing his own share in the escapade, when he reflected that it was not entirely his own secret, he must see Ricos first. Buttertub was naturally good-natured, and he had no idea that the frolic would take so serious a turn, but his brain worked slowly, and he did not quite see what he ought to do.
Stacey was nearly wild. He strode up and down the room. “I haven’t seen father for two years, and mother has written him suchglowing accounts of me that he expects great things. It would be bad enough, without this last trouble, to have him find out what a slump I am. I can never look him in the face—never.”
“Fathers are pretty rough on us fellows, sometimes,” said Buttertub. He was thinking of his own father, bombastic old Bishop Buttertub, and wondering, after all, whether he could quite bear to shoulder all the consequences of his frolic. When the Bishop was angry he had been compared to a wild bull of Bashan, and Buttertub, Jr., would rather have faced a locomotive on a single track bridge than his paternal parent on a rampage. He wished now that he had not yielded to the wiles of the entrancing Cynthia, and attended the party. “Hang that girl!” he growled aloud.
“Who?” asked Stacey.
“Miss Vaughn,” Buttertub replied. “Some one was saying you meant to invite her to the declamations. You are welcome to for all me.”
“Hang all girls,” replied Stacey. “I shan’t invite any one.”
Buttertub rose awkwardly. “Don’t be too blue, Stacey,” he said kindly. “Something’sbound to turn up,” and he ambled briskly off to find Ricos. “It’s tough,” he said to himself, “but I’m no sneak, so here goes.”
But Ricos was not in the barracks, and Buttertub, thankful for a little postponement of the evil day, went into the great hall to practice his declamation. He had chosen a dignified oration, and he possessed a sonorous voice and a pompous manner. Colonel Grey smiled as he heard him.
“You remind me strikingly of your father,” he said. “I am sure that I shall see you in sacred orders one of these days. Perhaps you too will become a bishop.”
Buttertub hung his head. “Better be a decent, honorable man, first,” he thought. The boys were cheering over in the gymnasium: “Hip! hip! hip!”
“Yes—hypocrite,” he said to himself, “I’ll punch Ricos until he consents to making a clean breast of it.”
But there was no need for resorting to this means of grace. Deliverance was coming, and, strange to say, through Ricos himself. Ricos had more food for remorse than Buttertub. His sister had written him from time to time of Jim’s condition, and this morning he had received a letter which woke the pangsof conscience. Mr. Armstrong had thoughtlessly told Jim of Terwilliger’s arrest, and the news had affected him very seriously. He could not sleep, and he could talk and think of nothing else. The physician feared that his reason would give way. He sent for Stacey, and his friend went to him immediately, but he could give him no encouragement, and his call only made Jim worse. As Stacey left the door he met Ricos.
“You had better not call on Armstrong to-day,” Stacey said. “He is awfully sick. I shouldn’t wonder if he died. He had an attack something like this last year, but the doctor pulled him through because there was nothing on his mind to worry him; but now everything seems to be in a snarl, and he isn’t strong enough to bear it. You come back with me, seeing you ain’t likely to do him any good.”
“It is of needcessity,” Ricos said. His face was white and scared. “Rosario, she write me that he will die, and if I see him not before, and assure myself that he carry no ill-will of me to the Paradiso, then my life shall be one Purgatorio. Indeed, I must see him; it is of great needcessity.”
Mrs. Armstrong also hesitated when Ricospresented himself, but Jim heard his voice and called him eagerly.
“Ricos! Ricos! is it really you? Oh, I’m so glad!”
“Of a surety, it is I,” Ricos replied. “I have come to ask your forgiveness. Alas! I am one miserable.”
“I will forgive you, Ricos, if you will tell Colonel Grey all about it, so that Terwilliger need not go to prison. You know they have arrested him, and really it is he and Stacey who ought to forgive you, and not I at all.”
“I do not comprehend of what you refer. I ask you to forgive me for your hurt——”
“But that is nothing! I am sorry that I beat you, Ricos. I wanted to win awfully, but I know now that you wanted the medal a great deal more than I did, and I’m so sorry Stacey did not run the best. Mother read me a verse that seemed just to be written for our games. I read it to Stacey and he said it would help him. Mother, please read it to Ricos, perhaps it will help him, too.”
And Mrs. Armstrong read:
Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall. But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mountup with wings as eagles; they shall run and not be weary; and they shall walk and not faint.
Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall. But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mountup with wings as eagles; they shall run and not be weary; and they shall walk and not faint.
Ricos looked still more frightened. The Bible to him was a book only for priests. Jim must certainly be at the point of death, or he would not ask to have it read; but Jim spoke up earnestly:
“I suppose, Ricos, that waiting on the Lord means doing our whole duty, and I want you to do something for my sake. I want you to tell that you went to the girl’s Cat-combing party. You know you went, Ricos. We are all sure of it, but nobody can prove it. Please tell Colonel Grey. It would be such a noble thing to do.”
“And you will make me assurance of your forgiveness?”
“With all my heart, and I will stick up for you with all the boys.”
“Thank you, my friend; now I shall enjoy some comfort of the mind. And you will tell those in Paradise that Ricos is not so devil as they may have heard.”
Jim looked puzzled. He did not quite understand that Ricos’s motive was fear of retribution. He thought that Jim was going to die, and he felt himself in a measure responsible for his death; but Jim’s forgivenessand promise of intercession in his behalf was a boon to be purchased at any price, and he readily promised to disclose everything. Jim fell back upon his pillow, exhausted but happy, and fell asleep for the first time in many hours.
Ricos hurried back to the barracks. He had no scruples about implicating Buttertub in his confession, and he would have gone to Colonel Grey without consulting his friend had Buttertub not been on the lookout for him. They were each relieved to find that they had come separately to similar conclusions, and they sought Colonel Grey together.
They were obliged to wait some time, for their instructor was closeted with Mr. Mudge.
“I am just going out with this gentleman,” said Colonel Grey, as he noticed them standing in the hall. “Is it anything which cannot wait?”
“It is of needcessity,” said Ricos, and then his tongue clave to the roof of his mouth, and Buttertub made the confession for both.
“Your acknowledgment of your fault comes just in time,” said Colonel Grey. “Make your statement once more to this gentleman, and it may save an innocent classmatefrom disgrace, and our unfortunate Terwilliger from unjust imprisonment.”
“You shall imprison me,” said Ricos, in a theatrical manner. “That will make me one supreme happiness.”
Buttertub turned pale, but did not falter, and told the story frankly and simply.
“So you are the two gentlemen who introduced yourselves in disguise into a young ladies’ boarding-school,” said Mr. Mudge. “Will you tell me how you made the acquaintance of Terwilliger’s sister, the young lady they call Lawn Tennis, who gave you admittance.”
“But it was not Terwilliger’s sister at all. Miss Vaughn threw us out the key to the turret door,” said Buttertub.
“A reliable witness to the affair assures me that it was Lawn Tennis. She was recognized partly by a Tam O’Shanter cap which she is in the habit of wearing.”
“Miss Vaughn wore a Tam O’Shanter when she looked out of the window. She had it pulled down over her forehead.”
“In view of these disclosures,” Mr. Mudge said to Colonel Grey, “I shall withdraw my prosecution of Terwilliger. I have not sufficient evidence to make out a case againsthim, since it is now shown that the other young gentleman, Mr. Fitz Simmons, did not visit the school on the night in question, and consequently had no motive for testifying falsely. I think any court would admit him as a competent witness in Terwilliger’s behalf, and consider thealibiestablished. There will be no trial of Terwilliger. I must confess myself completely at fault in this matter.”
Buttertub drew a long breath. He felt dazed and sick. Ricos swayed from side to side, and sank into a chair. Colonel Grey was bowing Mr. Mudge out, and Buttertub poured a glass of water and handed it to Ricos in his absence. “Don’t give in yet,” he said; “we’ve fixed it all right for Fitz Simmons and Terwilliger, but we’ve got to face the music now on our own account.”
But Ricos had gone to the extent of his capabilities, and had fainted dead away. Colonel Grey returned and assisted Buttertub in restoring him to consciousness. His first words were, “When is it that we go to the prison?”
“My dear boy,” said the Colonel, “you were not suspected of any connection with the robbery. But if you imagined that you would be, and made the avowal which youdid in the face of that apprehension, you deserve all the more credit.”
“Shall we not be expelled, sir?” Buttertub asked.
“Never! My school has need of young men who can acknowledge a fault so honourably. I consider that your generous conduct has wiped the misdemeanour from existence. You have suffered sufficiently, and I have no fear that such a thing will ever occur again. I shall only ask you to make this acknowledgment complete by sending Madame —— a written apology for intruding in so unwarrantable a manner upon her school. I shall call upon her personally and deliver it.”
“And my father will not feel that I have disgraced him,” Buttertub said slowly, unconscious that he was speaking aloud.
“I shall tell the Bishop,” said Colonel Grey, “that he has a son to be proud of.”
Ricos staggered off to bed, and Buttertub sought Stacey and reported.
“You are a trump!” Stacey cried, “I never realized before what a hero you are. I beg your pardon for every unkind thing I have thought or said about you, and if you will accept my friendship it’s yours forever. It istime for supper now, and after that we’ll find Terwilliger and tell him the news.”
Jim improved rapidly after this. If Ricos had known that he would recover he might not have confessed, and there was a lingering feeling in his mind that Jim had no right to get well, and was taking a mean advantage of him in not fulfilling his part of the bargain and winging his way to Paradise, to tell the angels that Ricos was not such a bad fellow after all. Still, he never really regretted Jim’s recovery or his own avowal. It cleared his conscience of a great load, and the boys, having heard that Ricos had madeamende honorable, no longer complimented him with the terms “chump and mucker,” but accepted his presents of guava jelly and other West India delicacies, and as he had the Spanish gift for guitar-playing, elected him to the banjo club.
A little after this Mrs. Roseveldt gave her last reception for that season. She had not forgotten the proposed plan of the tennis tournament at Narragansett Pier, and she invited Stacey to come and talk it up with Milly.
In spite of his declaration of war against all womankind, Stacey accepted the invitation eagerly. Stacey was himself again, yet not quite his old giddy self. The disappointmentand trouble which he had experienced had changed him for the better. He was less of a fop and more of a man, than when he tossed his baton so airily before his drum corps at the annual drill. But he was still something of an exquisite in dress. His father had given him permission to order a dress suit for the occasion of prize declamation, and Stacey besieged his tailor until he agreed to have it done in time for Mrs. Roseveldt’s reception.
Milly went home the day before. We had all been invited, but had decided virtuously that we could not spare the time from our studies, while I had, as an additional reason, the knowledge that I had no costume suitable for such a grand society affair. Milly described it all afterward, and I enjoyed her description more than I would have cared for the party itself.
The mandolin club played softly in the dining-room bay-window, hidden by a bank of palms and ferns, and the lights glowed through rose-coloured shades. The supper-table, in honour of a riding club to which Mr. and Mrs. Roseveldt belonged, whose members were the guests of the evening, as far as possible suggested their favorite exercise. The table itself was horseshoe in shape; saddle-rockoysters, and tongue sandwiches were served. There was whipped cream, the ices were in the form of top-boots, saddles, jockey-hats, and riding whips, and the bonbonnières were satin beaver hats.
Stacey appeared early in the evening. It was the first time that Milly had seen him in a dress suit, and Milly confided to me privately that he seemed to her to have suddenly grown several inches taller. He was very grave and dignified, not at all like the old rollicking, boyish Stacey with whom Milly was familiar. Milly, quite inexplicably to herself, felt a little awed by him and was at loss for a subject of conversation. She referred to the Inter-scholastic Games, and Stacey scowled so violently that Milly saw that this was an unfortunate beginning, and hastened to change the subject to that of the proposed tournament at Narragansett Pier. They were practically alone, for the parlor had been deserted by the onslaught on the supper table, and Stacey said confidentially:
“I’ll tell you just how it is, Milly; I ought not to take part in that tournament.”
“Oh, do!” pleaded Milly.
Milly and Stacey
“I will if you say so. It shall be just as you say, for I’ll do anything for you; but if Igo into this thing I lose every last chance of passing my examinations for Harvard. All the same, I’ll do it if you want me to.”
“No, no;” murmured Milly; “not at such a cost; but it can’t be as bad as that. What do you mean?”
“I mean that I have made a precious fool of myself all winter. I have gone in for athletics at the expense of my studies, and I’ve failed in both; and now that the time is coming for my examinations it will be a tight squeeze if I pass. I made up my mind to reform after I extinguished myself at the games, and I’ve been cramming ever since. Do you know what the boys call me now?”
“A regular dig, I suppose.”
“No, that’s obsolete. At Harvard a hard student is a ‘grind,’ and a very hard student is a ‘long-haired grind.’ Woodpecker is complimentary enough to call me a ‘Sutherland Sister hair invigorator grind.’”
Milly laughed.
“No laughing matter, I tell you. I’ve broken training. I haven’t been to the oval, or on the river, or riding in the park but once since the games. Instead of that, I put myself in the hands of our Professor of Mathematics, and I am letting him give me a privateoverhauling. His motto is, ‘Find out what the boys don’t like and give them lots of it.’”
“How horrid!” Milly murmured sympathetically.
“He’s just right. If you want to put it in a little kinder way, you might say, ‘Find out where the boys are weak, and then make them strong.’ The trouble is I’m weak all through, so I’m having a rather serious time just now. I shall have to sit up till one o’clock to pay for the pleasure of this interview. The examinations take place between the 25th and 27th of June, inclusive. If I go into this tournament, or even think of it before then, I lose every ghost of a chance for Harvard, and will have to take to the sea, and I loathe it. But that’s nothing—if you want me to do it. You don’t half know me, Milly. I tell you, it’s nothing at all—why I’d give up life itself for you. There isn’t anything I wouldn’t give up for your sake. No, you shan’t run away. We’ve got to have it out some time, and we might as well understand one another now. I love you, Milly; I have always loved you; and if you don’t like me—why, I have no use for Harvard, or life either.”
He looked so despairing and yet so wildly eager, that Milly was very sorry for him.
“Of course, I like you, Stacey,” she said kindly.
“You do?” he cried. “I can’t believe it. You are fooling me.”
“No, Stacey; but you are fooling yourself. You would be very sorry, by and bye, if I took you at your word now, and snapped you up before you had time to know your own mind. Why, Stacey, we are both of us too young to know whether we are in earnest. We ought to wait, and we ought neither of us to be bound in any way. Perhaps everything will seem very different to us four years from now. Don’t you think so yourself?”
“I can never change,” Stacey asserted confidently.
“But I may,” Milly said with a smile, thinking of her own foolish little heart, and of how appropriate the advice she was giving to Stacey was to her own case.
“I don’t believe you will,” Stacey replied. “I am sure it’s a great comfort to know that you care for me a little; it’s a great deal better than I expected.”
“Did I say so? I didn’t mean to,” Milly exclaimed in consternation.
“No, you haven’t committed yourself to anything, but you have intimated that I mayask you again after I have graduated from Harvard. And since I desire that time to come as soon as possible, I presume I have your permission to give up the tennis tournament and go on preparing for my examinations.”
“Yes, certainly. But I’m sorry for the Home. I don’t quite see how we are going to raise the money for the annex. Still, I suppose, as students, our first duty is to our studies.”
“Exactly. But vacation is coming and we will see what we can do for the Home then. If your mother will only postpone the time I will see if I can get the boys together in July.”
The old butler came in at this juncture with a tray of ices. He was followed by Mr. Van Silver, who protested against his introducing “coolness” between old friends, but who remained all the same, and spoiled their opportunity for any further conversation on the subject uppermost in Stacey’s mind.
“I’ve an idea, Stacey,” said Mr. Van Silver. “I want you to go to Europe with me this summer. You’d enjoy the trip I propose to make among the Scottish hills and lakes. I know your parents will approve, for it willbe a regular education for you, especially with my improving society thrown in.” Mr. Van Silver winked as he said this, and he was greatly surprised when Stacey answered promptly:
“Awfully kind of you, Mr. Van Silver, but I can’t go possibly.”
“Why not?”
“Well, first of all, I’m bound to be conditioned on some of my studies at my Harvard examinations, and I shall have to coach all summer in a less agreeable way than the one which you suggest. Then I have engaged to get up a tennis tournament at the Pier——”
“Tennis! what’s that to such a trip as I propose. Don’t be an idiot, Stacey.”
“It is really not an ordinary tournament,” Milly added, with a desire to make peace between the two. “But, Mr. Van Silver, when do you sail? Perhaps Stacey can go after the tournament.”
“I sail the last of June.”
“Then there’s no use talking,” said Stacey.
“Unless you could join Mr. Van Silver by going over later.”
Stacey shook his head vigorously. He had no desire to be expatriated this summer.
“I comprehend,” said Mr. Van Silver. “The Pier possesses greater attractions than I can offer, but you needn’t try to humbug me into believing that tennis is the magnet which draws you thither. Tell that to the unsophisticated, but strive not to impose on your grandfather. He has been young himself.”
Mrs. Roseveldt came in with quite a party from the supper, and Stacey promptly took his leave.
When Milly confided this to me,—as she did nearly all of her joys and sorrows,—I could not help expressing my sympathy for Stacey.
“Stacey will recover,” she said confidently. “Men are never as constant as we women.” And Milly nodded her head with the gravity of an elderly matron who had experienced all the vicissitudes of life, and who could now regard the ardours of youthful affection and despair with a benign tolerance, as foreseeing the end from the beginning.
“Do you know, Tib,” she continued, “Mr. Van Silver was joking in the way that he always does about Stacey, when papa came to us; and papa said, ‘Don’t put such notions in my little girl’s head, Mr. Van Silver. Stacey has his college course before him and may be able to quote from my favourite poet when itis over.’ With that he took down an old volume of Praed and read something which is so cute that I copied it afterward. Here it is:
We parted; months and years rolled by;We met again four summers after.Our parting was all sob and sigh;Our meeting was all mirth and laughter.For in my heart’s most secret cellThere had been many other lodgers:And she was not the ball-room’s belleBut only—Mrs. Something Rogers.
We parted; months and years rolled by;We met again four summers after.Our parting was all sob and sigh;Our meeting was all mirth and laughter.For in my heart’s most secret cellThere had been many other lodgers:And she was not the ball-room’s belleBut only—Mrs. Something Rogers.
We parted; months and years rolled by;We met again four summers after.Our parting was all sob and sigh;Our meeting was all mirth and laughter.For in my heart’s most secret cellThere had been many other lodgers:And she was not the ball-room’s belleBut only—Mrs. Something Rogers.
“I wonder whether I shall be Mrs. Rogers, or Mrs. Smith, or Mrs. What? I’d rather be just Miss Milly Roseveldt.”
“And how about Professor Waite?” I asked, hardly daring to believe that the fresh wind of common sense had cleared away the old miasmatic glamour.
“Oh, Adelaide must repent. They would make such a romantic couple. I have set my heart on it. And Tib, I believe she does like him, just a little, though she hasn’t found it out herself yet. I am going to take charge of their case, and some day you and I will be bridesmaids, Tib. I’ve planned just how it will be. It’s a pity Celeste acted so. Do you really think Miss Billings will be equal to a wedding dress?”
“What, yours, Milly?”
“Mine? No, indeed. I don’t want to be married. It’s a great deal nicer not to be. Don’t you think so?”
“Milly, darling, I really believe that you have recovered from that old folly.”
“Why, of course I have—ages and centuries ago.” And Milly laughed a wholesome, gay-hearted laugh, which astonished as much as it pleased me.
“Alas for woman’s constancy,” I laughed; “but, indeed, Milly, I am very glad that you are so thoroughly heart-whole. We will keep a jolly old maids’ hall together, only you must not encourage poor Stacey.”
“Why not?” asked the incomprehensible Milly. “I am sure he is a great deal happier with matters left unsettled than he would have been if I had told him that I hated him; and that would not have been true either.”
“You told him that he might ask you again after he graduates, and you certainly ought not to allow him any shadow of hope when you know positively that you can never love him.”
What was my surprise to hear Milly reply very seriously: “But I don’t know that, Tib. Four years may change everything. Staceymay not care a bit for me at the end of his college course. In that case, I’m sure I shan’t repine. But then, again, if he should happen to hold out faithful, perhaps my stony heart may be touched by the spectacle of such devotion. Who knows?”
And Milly looked up archly, with a pretty blush that augured ill—for the old maids’ hall.